2018 SS Concirerge Genetics - Business SA Design for Export Awards

Many small scale farmers and breeders are not applying the advancements in breeding technology and knowledge that is produced by government funded research projects. The high cost and expertise to deliver genotyping is simply not affordable for smaller scale breeders and information on the advantages of incorporating genotyping into breeding practices is not effectively communicated. Small breeders also can’t afford to have an in-house geneticist and without this genotyping can seem complicated and out of reach.

Concierge genetics offers a range of genotyping services that can be tailored to meet the customer’s needs. Because our partner lab has a board range of platforms for research we can apply multiple different technologies that are available and best suit our clients’ breeding objectives. This reduces the cost and allows us to be flexible and continue to meet the customer’s needs as their business grows. Concierge Genetics is also able to provide data analysis and interpretation essentially becoming their ‘in-house geneticist’ making it easy to understand for those with little to no understanding of genetics.

AgriTech is becoming increasingly valuable and Concierge Genetics has the potential for widespread impact in the agriculture sector. Making genotyping accessible and affordable for all farmers will increase their productivity, profits, and the big data collected will facilitate R&D investment into using genetics to solve existing and future challenges. In the same way humans are vaccinated to protect against the outbreak of disease, plant and animals can have naturally occurring resistance to diseases. However, not all individuals carry these resistance genes so the disease has the opportunity to become established and cause widespread devastation (eg. Banana Panama Disease). Genotyping means we can check and make sure all the individuals have resistance and thereby blocking the opportunity for diseases to enter.

Very few people globally are fortunate enough to have the experience and expertise of developing a high scale laboratory and a revolutionary speedbreeding program for cereals. Our founder and managing director is one such person, who has always applied science, technology and design thinking to his roles. As a leader in the advancements of genomic technologies for breeding industries, this has seen him travel the world as a consultant. The know-how has formed the backbone of his partnership with Adelaide’s world-class human genetics research group allowing Concierge Genetics to access this technology for plant and animal breeders and farmers. We foster a design-thinking culture that’s people-centric which influences creativity to maintain competitive advantage and in-turn create new revenue streams. One such example is our software and app development partnership to increase Concierge Genetics market reach and scale. Further, this collaborative and innovative mindset has also allowed us to rapidly respond to our customers needs and be disruptive in the marketplace as we offer the full suite of DNA selection and provide our clients with our concierge molecular breeder deployment service.