Decco acquires Telesense to strengthen offering to combat food waste

UPL Ltd. (NSE: UPL & BSE: 512070 LSE: UPLL) ('UPL') a global provider of sustainable agricultural solutions, today announced that its post-harvest business, DECCO, through a subsidiary has acquired the business of TeleSense, the world's leading provider of remote monitoring solutions for crop storage and transportation, to advance its mission to reduce food waste and support food supply chain sustainability.  TeleSense will join DECCO in the OpenAg® network, a platform pioneered by UPL, committed to Reimagining Sustainability for global agriculture. TeleSense uses scalable sensor technology on an artificial intelligence (AI) platform to monitor temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in stored grain and other crops. It uses fixed and portable sensors to monitor the condition of stored food commodities, automates the early detection of potential issues such as hotspots, excess moisture, and pests and mitigates spoilage, quality degradation, and food waste. The TeleSense app provides users with alerts to effectively manage crop quality, reduce waste, ensure safety, and improve operational efficiency. Adding TeleSense technology to DECCO's portfolio complements its robust range of gas monitoring, safety and detection devices as well as fumigants. DECCO is a global leader in providing post-harvest solutions to reduce food waste and enhance the freshness of fruits and vegetables across the food supply chain. The acquisition of TeleSense follows a successful strategic collaboration formalised between UPL and TeleSense in January 2021. It continues DECCO and the wider OpenAg® network's ongoing commitment to investing in and scaling technologies that improve food security, advance the sustainability of the sector, and reinforce farmers and grower resilience. Jai Shroff, Global CEO of UPL Ltd., said: "The last six months have seen the challenge of food security attract global attention, but one important aspect has been overlooked: food waste. More than 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted every year – as much as a third of all food produced for human consumption – much of it before it reaches consumers. UPL's commitment to Reimagining Sustainability is not just about helping farmers grow food, but also storing and preserving it. Our acquisition of TeleSense furthers our ability to produce constant innovation of smarter and safer solutions to minimise waste at the heart of the food system." Naeem Zafar, the co-founder of TeleSense, Inc. said: "TeleSense's vision was to revolutionise the way that food is stored by bringing the latest digital technologies to solve age-old problems. DECCO shares this vision, and we have seen first-hand the benefits of collaboration and of combining complimentary technological offerings. We are excited to have joined DECCO and to be embarking on a new chapter to improve post-harvest innovation around the world." Francisco Jose Rodriguez Nogueron, President & CEO of DECCO Worldwide, added: "We are delighted to welcome TeleSense to UPL's OpenAg® network. By joining forces, we are creating an unrivaled post-harvest solution set that will enable growers, storages, packers, and processors alike to maximise quality preservation and prevent food losses."   About DECCODECCO, a UPL company, is the global leader in providing postharvest solutions to reduce food waste and enhance the freshness of fresh fruits and vegetables all along the food supply chain from harvest to the kitchen.  DECCO delivers value every day to packers, shippers, supermarkets and consumers with customised coating, decay control, sanitization and disinfection products, application technology, on-site service and 90+ years of postharvest expertise.  Over 200 dedicated DECCO employees operate in over 40 countries. For more information please visit deccopostharvest.com  or follow us at LinkedIn.    About TeleSenseTeleSense is digitising the post-harvest grain supply chain. Utilizing advanced IoT, real-time environmental monitoring, and cloud-based AI technology, TeleSense provides managers with actionable insights about their stored crops, so that they can make more profitable storage and transport decisions quickly and easily. The company's wireless sensors and app work together to continuously monitor crops and automatically send issue alerts to users, mitigating spoilage, infestation and quality degradation. TeleSense also retrofits traditional temperature cable systems to integrate them with its fully wireless software ecosystem. For more information, please visit www.telesense.com.   About UPLUPL Ltd. (NSE: UPL & BSE: 512070, LSE: UPLL) is a global provider of sustainable agriculture products and solutions, with annual revenue exceeding $6bn. We are a purpose-led company. Through OpenAg®, UPL is focused on accelerating progress for the food system. We are building a network that is reimagining sustainability, redefining the way an entire industry thinks and works – open to fresh ideas, innovation, and new answers as we strive towards our mission to make every single food product more sustainable. As one of the largest agriculture solutions companies worldwide, our robust portfolio consists of biologicals and traditional crop protection solutions with more than 14,000 registrations. We are present in more than 130 countries, represented by more than 10,000 colleagues globally. For more information about our integrated portfolio of solutions across the food value chain including seeds, post-harvest, as well as physical and digital services, please visit upl-ltd.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.