Innovation of the Week is a series highlighting retail initiatives that have caught the eye of our team. Every week, we bring you new ideas and case studies across consumer, technology, sustainability, economy, policy, and industry.
What is it?
Marks & Spencer foodhalls across the UK will now stock and sell parsnips farmed autonomously through a trial funded by the M&S Plan A Accelerator Fund, which is available for innovation projects to enable rapid action towards net zero.
Working with a long-term, family-owned root vegetable supplier Huntapac, the project involves using the latest farming technology and scientific methods to farm with a significantly lower environmental impact.
The technology includes two robots for bed forming, planting and weeding, two different types of drone to monitor and maintain crop health, and the latest scientific testing on soil health and carbon impact. Much like when agriculture moved from horse and plough to mechanical tractors, these latest technologies offer a future of farming that will aid farmers, create more highly skilled jobs in the industry and attract new talent.
The parsnips were grown in Yorkshire and are now available in selected M&S stores for approximately a week.
The trial was the first M&S Food project to be funded by the M&S Plan A Net Zero Accelerator fund, which the retailer launched to find innovation projects to enable rapid action towards net zero to meet its Plan A goal of being a Net Zero business across its entire supply chain by 2040.
Why does it matter?
If M&S are to be believed, the autonomous farming techniques could be as revolutionary to history of human agriculture as the introduction of irrigation or the heavy plough.
Grocers and experts both have long warned that the UK needs to strengthen and safeguard its food security, and new autonomous farming techniques could be a way of doing that.
Being able to improve yields while cutting down on carbon emissions in the farming process would also be hugely beneficial to the wider sector. M&S said the trial had cut emissions by 50%.
Strategic implications
Farming and climate action are both central topics in this country which show no signs of going out of the public eye any time soon. Automation and the advance of technology and its impact on the future of work all remain huge topics. Could M&S become in future, like its delivery partner Ocado, a food technology company with a sideline in groceries?
Winning strategies
- Sustainability
- Technology
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