Perdue Farms: From Data Chaos to Clarity With Dataiku

Perdue Farms, a leading U.S. food and agricultural company, faced significant operational challenges due to the inefficiency and complexity of manually collecting and reporting United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data. Their food safety team spent countless hours each month gathering data, managing multiple spreadsheets, and generating reports. 

The process was error prone and time consuming, preventing the team from focusing on more strategic tasks like data analysis. Perdue Farms needed a scalable, automated solution to streamline this process and deliver more accurate, timely insights, and Dataiku was ready to be the bulldozer to their blockers.

The Solution: Automating Data Collection & Reporting With Dataiku

By adopting Dataiku, Perdue Farms has been able to automate and simplify its entire data collection and reporting workflow. 

They integrated SharePoint as a centralized platform for business users to upload their CSV/Excel files, reducing the need for technical skills. At the same time, API calls were set up to automatically collect USDA data, eliminating the need for manual downloads. Dataiku seamlessly ingested both internal and external data, automating the cleaning, transformation, and joining processes, ensuring that reports were consistent and accurate. The end result means that the entire data inventory is now available for holistic reporting in Perdue Farms’ data lake. 

Moreover, Dataiku’s platform-agnostic capabilities were critical in allowing Perdue to leverage both Microsoft Azure and Snowflake within their data architecture. 

By providing seamless compatibility with these cloud services, Dataiku ensured scalable data processing, enhancing the performance of their data pipelines. This flexibility allows Perdue Farms to future-proof their operations by building a robust system capable of adapting to their evolving infrastructure, regardless of the underlying technology.

Enhanced Operational Efficiency & Self-Sufficiency

The implementation resulted in a significant reduction in manual effort, allowing Perdue Farms’ food safety team to focus on higher-value tasks such as analyzing data and making data-driven decisions. With a streamlined workflow, the data was made available for reporting much faster, enhancing the overall efficiency of their operations.

Tasks that previously took days are now completed in hours, thanks to the automation of data preparation and reporting. The seamless integration of multiple data sources empowers business users to generate on-demand reports without relying on IT support, promoting a self-service analytics culture within the company.

One of the most impactful aspects of Dataiku is how it has empowered our business users. With its intuitive interface and automation capabilities, users no longer need advanced technical skills to contribute to the data pipeline. Mike Barnas Tech Lead at Perdue Farms

Better Decision-Making & Scalability

The ability to combine USDA data, internal datasets, and conformed dimensions has transformed Perdue’s reporting capabilities, providing a more comprehensive and actionable view of their data. This enhanced visibility allows the team to make faster, more informed decisions, focusing on analysis and insights to drive improvements in food safety strategies and overall business operations.

With Dataiku, we've gained the ability to generate accurate, timely reports with minimal effort, allowing us to focus on deriving insights and improving food safety. Mike Barnas Tech Lead at Perdue Farms

Perdue Farms’ transformation through Dataiku not only meets their current operational needs but also sets the stage for future innovations. With the potential to integrate additional data sources and implement predictive analytics, the company is well-positioned to further enhance decision-making and operational efficiency. 

Dataiku’s platform-agnostic approach ensures that as Perdue Farms’ data architecture evolves, their solutions will remain scalable and flexible, ready to support the company’s growing data needs.