Supply chain disruptions in the agri-food world are nothing new. Every generation of food system leaders has faced its own version of uncertainty. What has changed is the scale, speed, and financial impact of these disruptions in a hyper-connected, climate-stressed global economy.
Take cocoa. In 2025, a combination of extreme climate stress and supply shortfalls triggered one of the most severe cocoa crises in recent history. Trading houses reportedly lost over $1 billion on cocoa derivatives after Ghana failed to deliver contracted volumes, forcing liquidations in a soaring futures market. At the same time, reports warned that the EU’s chocolate industry faces a $56 billion threat from climate and biodiversity risks.
If cocoa was the crisis of 2025, it could be rice, banana, wheat, maize, coffee, or palm oil in 2026.
The only thing that changes is the culprit.
Sometimes it’s climate volatility, erratic rainfall, heat stress, floods. Sometimes it’s geopolitics, export bans, sanctions, trade realignments. Sometimes it’s pandemics, port congestion, labor shortages, or transportation breakdowns. Many of these shocks are beyond human control. But not all of them.
And this is where the real problem begins.
The cost of standing still
The reality is that we are operating on a finite resource arable land that supports over 95% of global food production which is being degraded even as global demand climbs. In this structural environment of volatility, the old playbook of “historical averages” is a strategy for failure.
While industries like manufacturing, automotive, banking, and retail have embraced digital transformation to cut costs, protect margins, and build resilience, agriculture, especially upstream farming and sourcing has lagged behind.
This hesitation comes at a steep price.
Currently, approximately 14% of the world’s food, valued at an estimated $400 billion, is lost annually between harvest and the retail market. When you add the 25-30% loss due to broader inefficiencies and unpredictable weather patterns, the financial leakage is staggering.
For CPG and retail leaders, this is not an abstract concept; it is a daily operational reality characterized by: rising procurement costs, volatile pricing, empty shelves, shrinking margins, regulatory pressure, and declining consumer trust. In many cases, the damage is not caused by the disruption itself, but by the lack of early visibility and preparedness.
Digital transformation in agri-food systems is no longer an optional upgrade; it is the essential toolkit for survival. And delayed adoption is already costing the industry billions.
Lessons from outside agriculture
Other industries offer powerful lessons.
When Toyota faced repeated supply shocks in the early 2010s, from earthquakes to supplier failures, it didn’t just react. It rebuilt its supply chain with deep-tier visibility, real-time data sharing, and predictive risk models. Engineers and planners could see bottlenecks forming weeks in advance, not after production lines stopped. The result? Faster recovery, lower losses, and long-term resilience.
Siemens followed a similar path. By creating digital twins of factories and supply networks, Siemens empowered teams to simulate disruptions before they happened. A delayed shipment or component shortage was no longer a surprise; it was a scenario already modeled, tested, and mitigated.
These weren’t technology projects. They were confidence-building exercises for leadership teams making billion-dollar decisions.
Agriculture now needs the same mindset.
Why agri-food is different and harder
Unlike factories or warehouses, farms are open systems. You can’t shut them down, climate-control them, or restart them at will. Crops grow or fail based on weather, soil, pests, disease, and farmer decisions made months earlier.
But that doesn’t mean risk can’t be managed.
While you cannot stop climate change overnight, you can prepare growers with climate-smart, tech-enabled farming practices. While you cannot predict geopolitical shocks, you can design data-driven sourcing strategies that diversify risk. While you cannot eliminate pest and disease outbreaks, you can detect them early using predictive models and act before losses spiral.
This is where digital adoption, combined with data science and intelligent analytics, changes the game.
Are you ready to move from reactive crisis management to predictive industrial resilience? To discover how the world’s leading CPGs are hard-coding stability into their supply chains.
From visibility to Surety of Supply
Surety of Supply is not about reacting faster after a crisis. It is about knowing earlier, acting sooner, and planning with confidence.
Our latest whitepaper outlines the eight pillars of resilience that are currently reshaping the industry:
- Strategic Procurement: Moving from historical guesswork to AI-driven fill rate surety.
- Global Foresight: Utilizing near-real-time monitoring to anticipate global market shifts.
- Proactive Risk Mitigation: Leveraging Early Warning Systems (DEWS) to stay ahead of pests and pathogens.
- Quality Control: Contextualizing crop health to maximize shelf life and reduce spoilage.
- Triangulated Cost Control: Executing "best price strategies" based on real-time quality and availability.
- End-to-End Traceability: Moving from "rhetorical compliance" to "audit-ready" evidence for global regulations.
- Operational Efficiency: Replacing costly manual checks with automated digital field digitization.
- Proactive Readiness: Identifying new cultivation geographies before climate shifts make current ones non-viable.
These pillars represent the new standard for global sourcing. For a deep-dive into the Challenge-Solution-Value framework for each of these eight pillars,
Modern agri-intelligence platforms now enable companies to:
- Predict supply risks months in advance
- Measure climate, crop, and sourcing exposure in real time
- Simulate “what-if” scenarios before disruptions hit
- Build sourcing strategies that are climate-ready, measurable, and predictable
With the emergence of Agentic AI, Surety of Supply is no longer a future vision. Autonomous systems can continuously monitor risk signals, recommend actions, and adapt strategies, without waiting for manual intervention.
This is already happening today.
The 2026 playbook is already here
With the emergence of Agentic AI, Surety of Supply is moving from a vision to a closed-loop reality. Global leaders like PepsiCo, Walmart, and Loacker are already using these advanced frameworks to future-proof their sourcing.
- Walmart is reimagining fresh produce sourcing (grapes and strawberries) through AI-driven yield estimation and quality forecasting.
- PepsiCo is neutralizing volatility for thousands of smallholder farmers using a unified AI platform for end-to-end visibility.
- Loacker is ensuring the integrity of its “Italian Hazelnut Groves” through digital verification and pest-threat mapping.
The question for agri-food leaders is no longer if disruption will occur. It’s whether your organization will be caught off guard or prepared.
Get the Cheat Code for 2026
If you want the cheat code to build Surety of Supply in 2026 and beyond, don’t wait for the next cocoa crisis to make it obvious. Just set aside 30 minutes to read this white paper that explains Surety of Supply in CPG and Food Retail: 2025 and Beyond.
Inside we breakdown:
- The real problems shaping global food supply chains today
- Practical, data-driven solutions that work at scale
- Real-world examples from PepsiCo, Walmart, and Loacker
- How AI-powered decision-making is reshaping sourcing and resilience
In a world defined by climate volatility and geopolitical uncertainty, Surety of Supply is no longer a competitive advantage. It’s the minimum requirement for survival and growth.
Resilience is built on foresight, not reaction. Click here to secure your copy of and transform your procurement strategy today.
Author Bio
Dileep M
Dileep leads Marketing at Cropin, where he drives brand growth and strengthens the company’s positioning across global markets. Over the last four years, he has been instrumental in shaping Cropin’s brand and demand-generation strategies that contribute to customer acquisition. He brings close to two decades of experience in communication, branding, and marketing for enterprise technology companies. With a strong focus on narrative building and strategic brand development, Dileep enables Cropin’s continued global expansion.
