Project Margarita

Completed

Jalisco

Dairy

2019 – 2023

AgronomyTechnologyValue Chains

Mexico imports more than a third of the milk it consumes. At the same time, 40% of the milk produced in Mexico comes from family farms with fewer than 60 dual-purpose cows. To meet the country’s demand, it is essential to invest in the growth and professionalization of family ranches and to develop inclusive, competitive business and logistics models, confronting challenges like low levels of technology and productivity, climate change, and high volatility in production costs and sale prices.

In 2010, Project Margarita was started by Danone as a sustainable milk sourcing strategy aimed at improving the quality of life of small-scale producers. Nuup joined the project in 2019 to carry out pilots of disruptive technologies and create an end-to-end data system for the value chain. In 2021, we also launched an innovation agenda on regenerative agricultural practices.

This project supported the development of more than 500 low-income dairy producers, helping them transition from basic production practices within an unstable and unreliable market to a more prosperous scenario. Over a five-year period, producers who implemented the recommended changes tripled their incomes on average.

WORK AREAS

CompuVaca Pilot

For the first time in Mexico and Latin America, disruptive precision technologies were introduced to family and small-scale dairies, opening the door to innovative tools for herd management. In the CompuVaca Pilot, more than 30 ranches installed sensor collars on their cows to improve the efficiency, sustainability, and scalability of milk production.

TecnoLeche Platform

TecnoLeche is a data platform that connects every actor in the value chain: from the milk collector who visits each assigned barn daily, to the veterinarian providing technical assistance to producers, to the coordinator of a collection center who manages logistics, and finally, to the producer, who can record reproductive data online, track the quality of their milk deliveries, and access program benefits.

TecnoLeche is a modular system built partly on existing Microsoft tools and partly with custom components. It was designed in co-creation with users to ensure a user-friendly and intuitive app — above all for producers, in what was often their first experience digitizing ranch activities.

Regenerative Agriculture Program

This program aimed to design, implement, and evaluate a process that helped up to 50 Margarita producers transition toward regenerative ranching practices. It is part of the Danone RA Transition Mechanism, a broader effort to convert Danone’s value chain to sustainable, long-term models, shifting from conventional farming and ranching toward regenerative systems.