Olam wins Impact Award for digital platform that empowers smallholder farmers and improves incomes
Olam has been recognised for making a difference in farmers’ lives through its Olam Direct platform at Innovation Leader’s 2020 Impact Awards.
Now in its third year running, Innovation Leader’s Impact Awards honour companies with corporate innovation initiatives that have run for at least a year and delivered extraordinary outcomes with measurable business results.
Olam’s entry for Olam Direct emerged as a winner in the Impact Award category, having earned the recognition of an esteemed judging panel from organisations including Verizon, Philips Healthcare, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, CME Group, Dover Corporation, Duke Energy, and Cambia Health Solutions.
Powered by apps, a portal and an analytics dashboard, Olam Direct is a holistic platform connecting farmers with Olam to ensure a fair and transparent sourcing process for all. The app empowers farmers to get prices and transact directly with the company rather than going through intermediaries, which yields not only higher prices for farmers but cost savings on their expenses, as Olam manages ‘last mile’ collection.
Olam Direct highlights:
- Registered and benefited over 70,000 farmers across 12 countries, allowing them to transact with or without internet
- Each transaction is geo-tagged and timestamped allowing for traceability and consistency
- Unique value proposition provides traceability, allowing customers to get greater transparency on farmer activities
- Created new employment opportunities for rural communities by appointing former intermediaries as micro-collectors for Olam Direct
