TELUS launches fresh new TELUS Agriculture business to digitally transform the global food system

Global-leading innovators across the world have been brought together under one business to optimize food production and contribute to a better yield of food supply to meet the ever-growing requirements of our hungry planet

TELUS Agriculture acquires AFS Technologies, a global leader in sales and distribution solutions to the consumer goods market; and Agrian, a unified management platform for precision, agronomy, sustainability, analytics, and compliance

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, TELUS announced the launch of TELUS Agriculture, a new business unit dedicated to providing innovative solutions to support the agriculture industry with connected technology. TELUS Agriculture optimizes the food value chain by leveraging data in new ways to increase efficiency, production, and yields, delivering better food outcomes for businesses and the end consumer. Connecting each piece of the agriculture value chain empowers farmers and ranchers, the agri-business industry, and agri-food, consumer goods and retail companies to leverage advanced data systems and artificial intelligence to streamline operations, improve food traceability, and provide consumers with fresher and healthier food. TELUS Agriculture currently supports more than 100 million acres of agricultural land, backed by a team of more than 1,200 experts across Canada, the USA, Mexico, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Armenia, Germany, China, and Australia.

“The launch of TELUS Agriculture reflects TELUS’ unwavering commitment to our social purpose to leverage our world-leading technology to create remarkable human and social outcomes as, together, we help to protect and improve the global food system,” said Darren Entwistle, President and CEO of TELUS. “By means of our technology innovation, artificial intelligence and human compassion, we will help farmers and ranchers produce food for the world’s ever-expanding population more efficiently, safely and in a more environmentally friendly manner. Our efforts to optimize food production will contribute to a better yield of food supply to meet the ever-growing requirements of our hungry planet. From farm to fork, by digitizing the entire value chain and linking these technologies together for the first time, we will facilitate a secure exchange of information to allow farmers and ranchers, agri-business organizations, the agri-food industry and the consumer to make smarter decisions. Importantly, we are striving to provide innovative solutions to advance the agriculture sector on a worldwide basis, whilst positioning Canada as a preferred global supplier of safe, sustainable food. TELUS Agriculture is the latest addition to our unique portfolio of compelling growth assets, which includes TELUS International and TELUS Health and will leverage our team’s expertise in technology and digital transformation. TELUS Agriculture will make a significant contribution to this fast-growing portfolio, driving strong financial and operating performance as well as material shareholder value creation. Moreover, our Agriculture strategy also represents another significant investment in the communities where we live, work and serve, supporting TELUS’ world leadership in social capitalism.”

Over the course of the last year, TELUS has completed several key acquisitions, assembling a suite of assets that is unmatched in the agriculture industry. Together under TELUS Agriculture, our team now has the expertise, experience, and relationships to connect every participant in the agriculture value chain, from seed manufacturers and farmers through to grocery stores and restaurants.

“TELUS Agriculture is tackling agriculture and agri-food’s complex data management challenges by linking systems together in new ways. Connecting the value chain and building solutions that make it convenient and valuable to shift to digital will help our customers drive industry-wide profitability while delivering better, healthier products to the consumer,” said Francois Gratton, EVP and Group President TELUS and Chair TELUS Health and TELUS Agriculture.

“The agriculture industry has long waited for a solution that not only optimizes the food supply chain, but provides benefit to each contributor along the way, and we are confident that TELUS Agriculture can provide these solutions. While we are humbled to be in a position to make such an impact, we are more driven than ever to deliver on that promise for the industry at-large,” said Thad Armbruster, CEO, TKXS.

In addition, today, TELUS Agriculture is proud to announce our most recent cornerstone acquisitions, global sales and distribution solutions powerhouse AFS Technologies and SaaS farm management platform Agrian. Tampa, Florida-based AFS Technologies is a global leader in delivering value to the consumer goods industry with purpose-built integrated business planning, trade promotion management, and supply-chain management technology that drives efficiency, improves agility, and increases profitability. Fresno, California-based Agrian combines the industry’s deepest label resource with a holistic platform that manages precision agriculture, agronomy, sustainability, analytics, and compliance with striking ease and effectiveness. With the addition of AFS and Agrian, TELUS Agriculture is now a global leader with customers in more than 50 countries.

“2020 has been a year of uncertainty for most, and that holds especially true for the consumer goods and agri-food industry. The global pandemic has not only drastically impacted the supply chain, but highlighted the urgency to tackle existing challenges,” said Richard Nicholas CEO, AFS. “With TELUS Agriculture, we are helping companies achieve improved continuity of supply, protect their brand, and drive efficiency and profitability, all while delivering better, healthier products in a sustainable way to the consumer.”

By bringing together innovative, market-leading companies at each stage of the value chain, TELUS Agriculture has built incredible scale and scope in the industry to be uniquely positioned to transform collaboration across the global agriculture industry as an independent player. This includes a billion acres of historical acre data and 170 million acres of real-time data across the most diverse crop markets in the world that can be leveraged to build industry leading AI and machine learning-based insights. At launch, the companies acquired include:

Acquisitions

• - Florida, USA - Comprised of AFS, and , a global leader in supply chain management, and sales and distribution
• - Pennsylvania, USA - Seamless API integration
• - California, USA - Unified management platform for precision, agronomy, sustainability, analytics, and compliance
• - Alberta, Canada - Precision agronomy and farm management expertise
• - British Columbia, Canada - Simplified farm management software
• - Ross-on-Wye, United Kingdom - Farm-to-food traceability and supply chain management
• - North Carolina, USA - Custom data and program management
• * - Alberta, Canada - Critical insights and data-based knowledge

Partnerships

• - London, United Kingdom - Advanced imagery analytics
  
  

For full details about TELUS Agriculture, please visit .

*TELUS has entered into an agreement to acquire Feedlot Health Management Solutions. Transaction closing is subject to satisfaction of certain conditions precedent.

About TELUS

TELUS (TSX: T, NYSE: TU) is a dynamic, world-leading communications and information technology company with $15.3 billion in annual revenue and 15.7 million customer connections spanning wireless, data, IP, voice, television, entertainment, video and security. We leverage our global-leading technology to enable remarkable human outcomes. Our longstanding commitment to putting our customers first fuels every aspect of our business, making us a distinct leader in customer service excellence and loyalty. TELUS Health is Canada's largest healthcare IT provider, and TELUS International delivers the most innovative business process solutions to some of the world’s most established brands.

Driven by our passionate social purpose to connect all Canadians for good, our deeply meaningful and enduring philosophy to give where we live has inspired our team members and retirees to contribute more than $700 million and 1.3 million days of service since 2000. This unprecedented generosity and unparalleled volunteerism have made TELUS the most giving company in the world.

For more information about TELUS, please visit , follow us on Twitter and on Instagram.

Media Contact

Doug Self