Meet Ian Wheal, Co-Founder and CEO at Free Precision Livestock App: Breedr

Breedr is revolutionising the $1.7 trillion livestock industry, with an aim to reduce emissions by 30% across the supply chain. We are doing this through changing the supply chain from the bottom up, creating an individual animal data platform that enables an e-commerce platform for farmers to trade animals and consumers to have animals that are tracked through their entire life.

In doing so we support farmers with increasing welfare, productivity and genetics, all of which combined improve the efficiency of the supply chain through removing waste while still producing a product that can meet increasing global demand.
 
 
About — Breedr - Precision livestock network
 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
Having grown up on a farm I was feeling the challenges my family and friends were facing around what to do about the environment and consumers increasingly caring about where their food was coming from but also wanted to know they were being environmentally conscious in their purchase. However, farmers didn’t know what to do to solve this.

Having just spent three years working on and building technology around data, supply chains and mobile apps I realised there was a better way to support farmers through giving them the data they needed to make decisions and then joining up the supply chains through trading to get lifetime data on animals that consumers wanted.

As we realised the power of the data to support the farmer we also launched a cash flow product where farmers could use their own data to prove out the value of the animals and release cash on that animal, where usually farmers have to wait up to 24 months to get any income.
 

 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
The pandemic has driven up the demand for both meat and locally produced food, as well as digital awareness among farmers, now over 60% of our new sign ups are coming from pen and paper. In essence, we are having a major impact on the digitisation of the supply chain.

Additionally, we did a lot to support the community of farmers we have with networking, socials and events online. It was an isolating experience for all and farmers were amongst them.
 

What can we hope to see from Breedr in the future?

 
We hope Breedr will support a thriving agricultural industry here in the UK and internationally while at the same time delivering on high quality, trackable and environmentally beneficial produce for consumers.

This is through building a community of forward-thinking farmers that are leaning in to address the challenges ahead for global food production, both in the UK and internationally.