Cellar Insights this month unveiled the launch of the Rotten Potato Data Project.
Launched in 2023, Cellar Insights uses a combination of sensors and cloud-based algorithms to remotely monitor potato health during long-term storage with an aim to reduce food loss and optimize the quality of crops post-harvest.
The startup’s Rotten Potato Data Project is a phased initiative designed to help the potato industry learn from past storage losses and improve early-warning tools for spoilage risk across North America.
“Rotten potatoes are usually something growers want to forget,” says Terry Sydoryk at Cellar Insights. “But the data around those events is incredibly valuable.”
Storage losses are among the least visible costs in the potato supply chain as rot and breakdown can quietly build inside a storage long before they are detected.
The first phase of Cellar’s program invites growers and storage operators in Canada and the U.S. to share digital records from significant past spoilage events, including rot, breakdown, and hot spots.
“If we can understand what was happening in the days and weeks before a problem became obvious, we can build better tools that help every operator spot risk earlier,” Sydoryk believes.
Cellar Insights, a 2026 Calgary startup-to-watch, will use the library of data collected from its program to train and evaluate machine-learning models designed to identify storage risk earlier and more accurately.
The growers who participate in The Rotten Potato Data Project “aren’t just getting compensated for old records,” according to Courtney Kowk, Customer Success Lead at Cellar. “They’re shaping the early-warning tools the whole industry will rely on.”
The program supports Cellar Insights’ broader work in potato storage monitoring and spoilage-risk analytics, according to Kowk.
“The operations that have lived through a serious spoilage event know better than anyone what an earlier warning would have been worth,” Kwok commented.
Last year, Cellar Insights closed an oversubscribed seed round, with investment from Tall Grass Ventures, the University of Alberta Innovation Fund, UCeed, and others.
This year, Cellar snagged another $500,000 from SVG Ventures THRIVE through the form’s Ventures Pioneer Fund.
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