How Driscoll's Is Turning Berries Into A Data-Driven Business

LeadershipCIO NetworkHow Driscoll's Is Turning Berries Into A Data-Driven BusinessByPeter High,Contributor.Follow AuthorJun 15, 2026, 09:00am EDTDriscoll's berries © 2016 Bloomberg Finance LPWhen Sankar Chinnathambi joined Driscoll’s more than eight years ago, he didn’t expect that four fruits could present such staggering operational complexity. As Chief Information Officer of the world’s largest berry company, a business shipping four billion clamshells annually across 60 countries, he has spent the better part of a decade transforming how technology sustains one of the most perishable supply chains on earth."A berry is perishable, and its shelf life is very [short]," Chinnathambi noted. "We need a lot of technology to make sure that it can go from our harvest to the consumers in a timely manner."A Race Against the ClockThe numbers make the stakes plain. Driscoll's controls roughly one-third of the US berry market and grows strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries across more than 30 regions worldwide. And once a berry is picked, the clock starts. Raspberries, the most delicate of the four, have a shelf life of just 10 days.To manage that window, Driscoll's operates by what Chinnathambi calls the 2-2-2 rule: within two hours of harvest, berries must be cooled to two degrees centigrade, a process that itself takes two hours. Temperature probes are embedded in the fruit throughout the journey, from cooling tunnel to forward distribution center to the customer's store. A strawberry harvested in Michoacán, Mexico, destined for a grocery shelf in Boston in December, travels five to six days before a consumer reaches for it. Every degree matters.When Disruption Strikes"Without the data, we are not able to provide visibility to our teams," Chinnathambi explained. "They can’t make those decisions faster."MORE FOR YOUWhen disruptions hit, that visibility becomes decisive. A recent flood in Moro...