LONDON — Hectare, the agritech business focused on transforming the farm-to-factory supply chain, has appointed Octopus Group as its strategic communications agency to support its brand positioning and international growth plans.

Hectare’s digital tools connect farming supply chains, to reduce inefficiency and enable agribusinesses to increase sustainability, productivity and profitability. Since its launch in 2015, Hectare has facilitated more than $1 billion in commodities trading through its platform and helped 130,000 farm businesses, making it one of the largest global networks of agricultural businesses.

It is the second time Hectare has worked with Octopus Group, following a prior two-year relationship that resulted in the award-winning Tudder (Tinder for Cows) campaign. In the interim, Hectare has redeveloped its proposition, focusing on inventory, logistics, trading, and finance, and has not worked with another agency.

Octopus will now support Hectare to drive awareness among new buyer and stakeholder groups in the food supply chain, building on widespread use of its SellMyLivestock and Graindex marketplaces in the farming community. The agency’s brief includes messaging, earned media and influencer engagement, and executive profiling across LinkedIn, focusing on UK and US markets.

Hectare head of marketing Khuong Ngo said: "Coming in to support Hectare’s new direction, Octopus Group were well regarded given their history with the brand. But we wanted to ensure they could support with our new direction, so we conducted a full pitch process which told us they were still the best partner for us. We were excited by Octopus’s obvious passion for the Hectare brand, their creativity and the broad range of skill-sets they can call on to help fuel our growth.”

Octopus Group head of PR Toby Brown added: “We absolutely loved working with Hectare before and are over the moon to be supporting them again. Hectare lives on innovation and creativity and are committed to changing the game in agribusiness. They are bold in business and brave in their marketing and we’re tremendously excited about the work we can do together to support the next stage in their growth.”