Strategic Approach to Quality Assurance in Sustainable Farming

Lucas Paschoal is the Director of Agriculture Brazil at Kraft Heinz. He has more than 12 years of experience working with both national and multinational companies. He is experienced with supply chain, logistics, operations, commodities purchasing and agriculture.

Lucas Paschoal is a multi-skilled and highly motivated leader, shared his expert insights and valuable thoughts for the 2025 edition of Agri Business Review about the sustainable farming practice and his approach to quality assurance.

Leadership Role as the Director of Agriculture

My role is to lead an amazing team that oversees Kraft Heinz's agricultural strategy in Brazil, ensuring that our entire production supply chain, from the fields to the factory, operates with maximum quality, efficiency, and sustainability. My responsibilities range from strategic partnerships with farmers and the development of new farming technologies to directing our agri team. The main focus is to ensure we have the best ingredients, like the tomatoes that become Heinz ketchup, while maintaining a process that is environmentally responsible and generates company value.

Effective Consulting Strategies

The transition to precision agriculture is a collaborative journey. Here at Kraft Heinz, we have recently launched our Agri Digital Transformation 3YP and the Grower Excellence Program, which introduces technologies like satellite monitoring and crop forecasting, and establishes a relationship of meritocracy and trust between the company and the local farmers. We offer continuous technical consulting and share data that allows growers to optimize their use of inputs, water, and soil. The result is a mutual gain: the grower increases their productivity, and we guarantee the raw material with the superior quality standard we demand.

In the future, consulting will cease to be merely reactive and will become a partner that anticipates challenges, such as climate change and increasing demands.

Sustainable Farming Practices through Consulting Services

The role of consulting is fundamental to demystifying the idea that sustainability and profitability are mutually exclusive. At Kraft Heinz, our agri team demonstrates in practice that ESG initiatives generate efficiency. For example, by optimizing water use with more efficient irrigation techniques, the grower preserves a natural resource and reduces their operational costs. Our Grower Excellence Program, which has a dedicated ESG pillar, encourages practices that have resulted in a 25percent optimization in productivity, which means using less land and resources to produce more.

Future of Agribusiness Consulting

The future of consulting is to be increasingly predictive and data-driven. Digital agriculture is already a reality for us. In 2025, we are testing and improving the use of drones and digital platforms, with the goal of having a fully optimized operation by 2026. Consulting will cease to be merely reactive and will become a partner that anticipates challenges, such as climate change and increasing demands. With Heinz Seeds, for example, we are already developing tomato seed varieties that are more resistant to the tropical climate we have here in Brazil. The consultant of the future will be a technology integrator, helping the grower translate a vast amount of data into smarter and more sustainable decisions in the field.

Steps to Drive Measurable Results

Trust is the foundation of everything. The first step is to establish clear and shared objectives. Our excellence program, for example, is based on four transparent pillars: technical, ESG, results, and commercial. Second, it is necessary to create an incentive system that recognizes and rewards good practices, as we do by giving exclusive negotiation conditions to the highest-scoring growers and being part of the strategic definitions of crop planning. Finally, it is essential to genuinely invest in the people who are part of this partnership. This means going beyond the commercial relationship and focusing on qualifying and developing not only the grower, but also their employees. In practice, this translates into offering access to our consultants, promoting recognition events at the end of the harvest to celebrate the results achieved together, and creating an environment where success is seen as a mutual achievement. These steps transform a supply relationship into a long-term partnership based on trust and concrete results.

Commitment in Quality

I would like to reinforce that the result of this entire strategy materializes in the unmistakable quality of our products. When we say that nobody knows more about tomatoes than Heinz, it is not a slogan; it is the consequence of meticulous work that begins with the seed and passes through each of these excellence programs with our partners. Furthermore, our productivity, which is well above the national average, is not by chance; it is the result of continuous investment in technology and, above all, in people. This obsession with quality is what ensures that the world's number 1 ketchup arrives at the consumer's table with the taste and color they expect.