Bloom's Pitch for Ag Trading Tool Wins Ag Springboard, $7,500

The “Bloom" student team won the Ag Springboard $7,500 top prize for its pitch of a mobile platform to directly connect small produce farmers in Kenya with wholesale buyers, during the final round of the student business pitch contest April 1.

Team “Extrigate" won the $2,500 Ag Springboard second-place prize with its pitch to provide affordable irrigation wells to small-holder farmers in Kenya using borehole drilling technology.

“Bloom and Extrigate are solving critical issues for small-holder farmers in Kenya with solutions and business plans that are compelling," said Ag Springboard finalist judge Hunter Swisher, CEO of Phospholutions, a State College company that sells solutions like soil amendments and remediation to reduce the environmental impact of phosphorus.

Four finalist teams pitched judges through the morning, then re-gathered later in the day for the announcement of winners — all for the first time via Zoom and broadcast via Facebook Live due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The annual competition awards $10,000 for business and non-profit solutions in the agricultural sciences. Each team must include a student from the College of Agricultural Sciences. The four finalist teams included Drop In Fresh, with a venture to provide local farm produce to college students, and Savor Smoothies, pitching a concept to produce fruit and vegetable smoothies from lower-quality produce often discarded as food waste.

Watch all the pitches from the April 1, 9 am Facebook Live! video at @psuaginnovation

“Seeing students take initiative with their ideas and grow is the best part of Ag Springboard," said Mark Gagnon, Harbaugh Entrepreneur and Innovation Faculty Scholar. Gagnon organizes and moderates the competition and coaches teams.

“Although a tough decision, Team Bloom had the strongest presentation with a sound business model and a well-thought-out, go-to-market strategy," said Swisher, a 2016 Plant Science graduate of the College of Agricultural Sciences. In 2016, Swisher pitched Phospholutions in the Ag Springboard competition as a finalist.

Bloom's team members said they were all excited to have won and to put their next steps in motion. Their next step is to develop and start testing the product — a mobile platform to improve small farmers' profitability by directly connecting farmers with wholesale buyers, eliminating the need for a third-party broker.

Bloom's team members are: Sarah Turk and Chanpreet Singh, both senior computer science majors, Rachael Owens, a sophomore computer science major, Nicholas Roselli, a senior journalism major and Anna Abernathy, a senior environmental resource management major in the College of Ag Sciences.

“The Bloom team was as polished as any experienced entrepreneurs I've worked with," said finalist judge Linsey Herman, VP of product development for Factory LLC, a food, beverage and pet product investor and accelerator in Bethlehem, Pa. “They put together a thoughtful presentation that reflected a high level of research and had a lot of confidence in their product and its value proposition."

Bloom has been adapting its plans to the realities of the coronavirus pandemic. A planned trip to Kenya for May will be postponed to next winter break.

While it's challenging to replace in-person, on-the-ground work, said Bloom team members, they view the pandemic's travel restriction as an opportunity to figure out how to operate exclusively digital, said Chanpreet Singh, a senior computer science major.

“It's an interesting way for us to put together a plan we always had to put together anyway," said Singh.

Bloom team member Rachael Owens said that as she helped her team pitch from a computer upstairs in her family's home, her parents watched downstairs on Facebook. Now, her parents know a lot more about the project she's been working so hard on lately, said Owens.

Extrigate 'can't wait to get back to work'

The students on the Extrigate team, which won $2,500, are also excited to move forward on their plans.

“We can't wait to get back to work," said Mary Fraijii, a sophomore studying chemical engineering, on the Extrigate team. Teammate Catherine McAllister, a sophomore studying biomedical engineering, said the funding would allow the team to put its plans into motion and start making a positive impact to address the problem.

 In addition to Fraijii and McAllister, the Extrigate team members are: Chris Giura and Josh Shoemaker — both seniors in engineering science  — and Juliet Mejias, a College of Ag Sciences junior studying community, environment and development with a focus on international development.

About Bloom

“The Bloom team was as polished as any experienced entrepreneurs I've worked with," said finalist judge Linsey Herman, VP of product development for Factory LLC, a food, beverage and pet product investor and accelerator in Bethlehem, Pa. “They put together a thoughtful presentation that reflected a high level of research and had a lot of confidence in their product and its value proposition."

Herman has helped create and commercialize more than 300 new food products over 16 years. 

Bloom is targeting the way in which produce is sold in Kenya. Bloom plans to offer a way to trade using SMS texts or an Android app to directly connect farmers and wholesalers. Bloom's platform would eliminate the need for a third-party broker that typically doubles the farmer's price, does not reliably deliver quality and restricts the farmer and wholesaler to the broker's network.

The platform uses chat-bots and Artificial Intelligence to gather information from the farmer about the type of crop, volume for sale and price. AI can correct misspellings and advise farmers of the average price of the crop in the area. The farmer can send pictures, and has more control over pricing.

Bloom focused on solving the problems of fair pricing, reliability and inclusivity in the trade.

“There's actually no direct competitor for what we are trying to do," said Sarah Turk during Bloom's pitch. Other platforms address some aspect of the broker problem, but not all those pain points.

Using the same model that Etsy uses, Bloom would collect 2 percent of the transaction fee from wholesalers. Bloom plans to grow geographically from a single region in Kenya, to East Africa and then globally.

The team plans to launch within a year. It has worked on its project for two years, has talked with 100 wholesalers and farmers — including a farmer named Tom whose comments Bloom highlighted as a specific example.

“Our platform gives Tom and other small-holder farmers a reason to be hopeful about their future selling produce," said Singh.

About Extrigate

“Extrigate had a solid understanding of the low-cost drill they were manufacturing and were able to present a compelling case to us," said Judge Linsey Herman. “I look forward to seeing how they turn this idea into a thriving business."

The Extrigate team is taking aim at the problem of irrigating crops grown by individual and communities of small-holder, Kenyan farmers, with a drill technique and well-drilling service that uses compressed air to reach below the water table.

Most small-holder farmers rely on rainwater for irrigation because deep well-drilling has been too expensive, the team said in its pitch.

Instead, farmers' current best option is a hand-dug well that presents new problems: It's dangerous to dig and, once dug is a hazard for small children. The wells are easily contaminated and only reaches a few feet below the water table, according to Extrigate's research of the problem.

Crop production can fall by 50 percent due to lack of sufficient water. So, the Extrigate team told judges, providing an alternative to rainwater irrigation equates to reducing risk for farmers. Its business model and plans promised several benefits: increased crop production and income for farmers, decrease in contamination of food supplies, and employment for of dozens of people.

“We have the ability to enact change not only with the farmers we are helping but also with the Kenyan people we are employing," said Juliet Mejias, during Extrigate's pitch.

About Ag Springboard and Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the College of Agricultural Sciences

In its eighth year, the Ag Springboard student business pitch teaches pitching skills and entrepreneurial thinking to students in the College of Agricultural Sciences. Students are coached and mentored in how to develop an idea for a solution in the ag sciences into a promising venture.

"I enjoyed being part of the Ag Springboard competition again this year and learning more about each team's business idea. Obviously, Ag Springboard is a special event involving engaged students and dedicated E&I faculty, staff and judges," said Dan Azzara, Alan R. Warehime Faculty Chair of Agribusiness and Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the College of Agricultural Sciences

Ag Springboard is a signature event of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the college, and part of Startup Week.

Twenty-two student teams registered for the 2020 competition. In round one, 12 student teams submit a short video. Round one judges select four finalist teams. 

Finalist teams typically pitch a panel of judges during a day-long event on campus, with an awards banquet in the evening. Due to Penn State's closure in response to the pandemic three weeks prior to the final round, the event was conducted virtually over Zoom — and shared via Facebook Live! The banquet has been postponed until the fall.

For the first time, student teams and the public can see all of the pitches by viewing the recorded video at @psuaginnovation on Facebook.

This year's finalist judges: 

• Daniel Azzara, Alan R. Warehime Faculty Chair of Agribusiness and Director Entrepreneurship and Innovation College of Agricultural Sciences

• Bill Donley, Chairman of college's Entrepreneurship & Innovation Advisory Board and retired CEO of Tangent Rail Corp

• Linsey Herman, Head of The Innovation Lab at Factory LLC

• Angie Raimondi, eCommerce Manager Blue Diamond Growers
• Hunter Swisher, CEO of Phospholutions, LLC

“I'd commend all of the teams," said Donley. “Considering the challenges of the current distancing requirements, the entire day was smooth and glitch-free and that helped the process tremendously. The teams were well-prepared to present remotely and it showed."

This event is sponsored by Dan and Wendy Azzara whose generous support will allow this competition to be an annual event. Generous support from Earl & Kay Harbaugh and the College of Agricultural Sciences contribute to the success of this event.