In the agrifood sector, uncertainty is no longer regarded as ‘disruption’ – it is now the strategic backdrop for every decision.
Tariffs, trade barriers and regional conflicts are reshaping how and where businesses can source ingredients from. Climate extremes including floods, droughts and unpredictable temperature shifts are disrupting planting schedules, production volumes and harvest timing across key regions. Rising threats of animal epidemics and biosecurity risks have dramatically impacted animal protein markets over the past few years and can trigger sudden and sharp fluctuations in both supply availability and food prices.
Real foresight is rare. As risks multiply and market dynamics become more fragmented, food and agriculture professionals are realizing broad, overarching strategies are no longer enough. It is increasingly becoming clear that each commodity requires its own strategy, intelligence, and forecasting approach.
In this environment, organizations that apply market intelligence in smarter, forward-looking ways will gain a critical edge and potentially save millions. Put simply, businesses need market intelligence that evolves with the world around them.
From Disjointed Data to Actionable Intelligence
What is market intelligence? And how can we optimize it to make better business decisions?
Even companies with extensive data access often struggle to extract meaningful insights to gain an edge in the next negotiation. Often they are awash with information, but it is disconnected, fragmented and difficult to apply directly to business decisions.
True market intelligence allows organizations to understand what’s happening right now and more importantly, what’s likely to happen next. Procurement teams are being asked to act today based on tomorrow’s risks, and to do that they need intelligence that is real-time, integrated, predictive, and above all – actionable.
The New Shape of Market Intelligence
Four core capabilities define the future of market intelligence:
- Reliable, High-Quality Data
The foundation of any intelligence system is trustworthy data, and in volatile markets, quality trumps quantity. You need:
- Accurate pricing, supply, and demand signals, for example the price of a specific cut of red meat from a specific region.
- Timely, real-world updates, like news or reports that describe the immediate impact of a flood on grains availability.
- Global, comprehensive coverage, e.g, data that lets you compare regions supplying similar products.
Crucially, all of it must be centralized and usable, not scattered across subscriptions, formats or spreadsheets. When critical inputs live in one place, teams move faster, see more clearly and make better decisions.
At Expana, we’re proud to be the world’s largest agrifood price‑reporting agency, covering over 36,000 price series overall, including 3,700 proprietary, verified series and deep on‑the‑ground fundamentals. All data is integrated into a single, standardized platform to deliver reliable, decision‑ready intelligence for volatile markets.
- Context is Vital
Data without context is just noise. That’s where news, insights and expert analysis come in.
- Curated, AI‑filtered signals combine market data with prioritized news, weather, policy and trade updates, with AI ensuring teams see the developments that matter, not everything that happens.
- Expert synthesis of upstream drivers where analysts translate shifts in input costs, logistics and disruptors into clear takeaways that explain why prices move and what to watch next.
- Smart alerts and action ready recommendations because leaders in the time of volatility need to be the first to know what to do, and need to act quickly and confidently.
Our platform, powered by Expana IQ, blends curated news, commodity facts and analyst reports and then uses AI to deliver context where it counts. Feeds surface upstream price drivers for each commodity. Expana users are always ready to explain what happened, why it matters, and what they recommend doing next.
- Forward-Looking Forecasts
Forecasting intelligence is vital for those buying and selling in the sector. However too many forecasts available are too late, vague or generic to be useful. In a high-stakes environment you need:
- Clear decision windows and trigger points that tell you when to act, not just where the price might be in six months.
- Trajectory with inflection points so you see not just where things may be heading, but also whether prices are going down or up and when.
- Confidence and rationale, driven not just by statistical models but also expert insight building on multiple factors, so you can make informed decisions that hold up to scrutiny.
The best forecasting information combines technical models, macro and fundamental analysis and human expertise to create foresights that are specific, actionable and decision-ready, to not just inform, but to empower optimum decision-making.
Expana combines advanced models, upstream driver analysis and expert review to produce forecasts that highlight inflection points, quantify risk and deliver clear recommendations. Our forecasts are built to be decision‑ready: you get the when, the why and the what: practical next steps to protect margins and seize opportunities.
- Strategic Tools That Connect Teams
In forward thinking businesses, modern intelligence must be utilized beyond procurement and pricing. Finance, R&D and C-suite teams are realizing the value of market data to support their functions.
Shareable cost modeling tools help teams to break down input costs, assess recipe impacts and inform product decisions and AI-powered tools reveal hidden dependencies, simulate outcomes, and spot correlations no human analyst could find alone.
With Expana IQ, we’re redefining how teams build cost models. Cost models that once took days can now be generated in minutes so teams, can run many more scenarios and collaborate on decisions across organizations. Those cost models are natively linked to our forecasts and price feeds, so you can view current input breakdowns (raw materials, packaging, transport, labor, etc.) and project how each line may move, forecasting the overall cost. The result: faster, better-aligned decisions that protect margins and turn market insight into measurable business outcomes.
Building the Intelligence System of the Future
Businesses need a new kind of data platform that is integrated, predictive and strategically aligned with decision-making.
At Expana, this thinking shaped the development of our new, next-generation platform. This solution brings together pricing, advanced forecasting, cost modeling and contextual insight into a single, user-friendly platform that supports optimum outcomes for all teams.
Designed from the ground up, it combines 200+ years of expertise to support confident decision-making across sourcing, budgeting, production and negotiation. Expana helps businesses turn market volatility into strategic advantage by transforming data into real-time, actionable insights.
AI is reshaping how market information is created and used and Expana IQ sits at the heart of that shift. Our platform pairs deep, rigorously validated market intelligence with Expana IQ‑powered tools that make insight discovery, modelling and decisioning fast, intuitive and operationally ready.
The world isn’t slowing down. With the right market data that is rich in context and designed for action, agrifood companies can not only survive volatility, but thrive in it. In today’s global economy the winners won’t be those who simply know what’s happening. They’ll be the ones who can see what’s next, and act on it first.
Smarter moves start here.
Expana IQ is evolving market intelligence – see it in action in our platform today.
Written by Olympia Theocharous
