A Manitoba agricultural tech startup hopes its product will raise the bar for feed monitoring systems in hog barns.
“Our sensor goes right on the feed line within the barns, as opposed to general load cells, which go on the bins, or laser systems that are at the top of the bin telling you how much is in the bin,” said Joe McCallum, a business analyst with Winnipeg-based company FeedFlo.
That means feed use can be constantly monitored.
“You can see those consumption patterns day to day, even minute to minute. That gives us a better idea of feed conversion. We can predict illnesses by seeing those drops (in) consumption days before you would otherwise. We can see when there might be a blockage in the bin, because we can see if the pipes are running empty.”
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Feed is typically a livestock producer’s biggest input cost, so accurate monitoring can save money.
FeedFlo is aimed at producing precision feed sensors for large-scale hog producers. Its patented sensor uses LiDAR technology and machine learning to create constant and useful data.
The technology calculates how much feed passes underneath the sensor by monitoring the height, speed, and shape of the feed over 40 times per second. FeedFlo then sends that data to the cloud, where it is processed and displayed on either a web interface or mobile app.
Users have access to all feed usage data and can sign up for custom alerts.
The precision-feed barn system is limited to hog farms for now, but McCallum said there could also be applications for poultry in the future.
Funding
FeedFlo recently received a $1.4-million grant from PrairiesCan’s Jobs and Growth Fund.
PrairiesCan, or Prairies Economic Development Canada, is a federal public agency designed to promote economic diversification in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
FeedFlo hopes the funds will allow it to speed commercialization of its product line.
“We’ve been working on this idea for a couple of years now,” McCallum said. “We’re on our fifth generation of the device, and this money helped us a lot with making some improvements there and hiring a few new people.”
The company created three new positions and now has a staff of 12. McCallum said the additional money also allowed it to troubleshoot past issues with sensor durability.
“Now we’ve been able to make it a totally enclosed environment, so it’s waterproof and dustproof,” he said. “That was, like, a huge mission for us; barns are pretty harsh environments.”
In a release announcing the funding, Casey Forsyth, CEO of FeedFlo, said he was grateful.
“Our team has created an excellent product, and the funding was just what we needed to accelerate our mission and expand our reach to more barns,” he said.
The company’s focus is largely restricted to Manitoba, although it has also expanded into the U.S. Midwest.
“Right now, we’re mostly local-ish,” said McCallum. “We also have patents for other places around the globe. We’re excited about international growth, but right now, we’re staying close to home.”
Now that the company is through the research and development phase and moving toward commercialization, it wants to scale up.
“Right now our main goal is to grow as much as we can and then just see how big we can make this thing,” McCallum said. “We like to think that it’ll become as ubiquitous an idea as monitoring the temperature. There’s a lot of room for growth.”
