This Thursday, March 25, the NGO Foodwatch has explained the food frauds, decoding in support, in a book by Ingrid Kragl (Director of Information) entitled Real Fake Eating , The Food Fraud Scandals (Manger du faux pour du vrai – Les scandales de la fraude alimentaire in French) . To put an end to these frauds and negligence that increase health risks, several companies and notably the Swiss start-up Farmer Connect have proclaimed the development of an efficient solution using blockchain technology to trace the provenance of different products.
The innovative blockchain technology for transparency and traceability
A blockchain is a user-populated database in which transactions are recorded and shared among users. The information entered cannot be transformed or deleted, as security is ensured by advanced digital cryptography techniques and each of the blocks in the chain contains the history of previously completed transactions.
This technology allows for immediate traceability at a lower cost in environments where the number of actors is very high. Thanks to this innovation, the different actors have to respect the established rules and honor the established protocols and mechanisms.
The obligation to trace food products in Europe
Product traceability is nowadays an obligation in the food industry. From production to distribution among consumers, actors must imperatively label the product offered according to its characteristics and origin. To do so, they use more and more connected objects or applications like My Food Story. This made in France traceability software allows potential buyers to access all the production steps of a product by scanning it with their smartphone.
System failures in the food industry
Food production is a large-scale system with many actors: farmers, producers, suppliers, consumers… In such a vast environment, the transparency of information between these different "partners" is not always assured. Unfortunately, this lack of transparency facilitates fraud and actions against health and production standards.
The Findus scandal of February 2013 is one of the most striking illustrations of this. Indeed, this scandal made the headlines when horse meat was discovered in products that were supposed to contain only beef. The Spanghero company and other intermediaries allegedly preferred horse meat to the more expensive beef and altered the labeling of meat packages to increase their profits on the merchandise.
These flexibilities had at the time raised doubts about the reliability of the conditions of food production, especially since this case was not the only one in recent years (contamination of eggs with Fipronil, salmonella contamination of dairy products …) and that about 1 in 10 people become ill after ingesting infected food.
It is estimated that less than 10% of products in the food market are traced, examined and certified. This low proportion highlights our vulnerability as consumers and may lead us to ask the question: do we really know what's on our plates?
IBM Food Trust : safe products
For several years, especially after the health tragedies, a vast movement has been launched to protect consumers from health risks related to the production, preservation and transport of food products.
IBM Food Trust, a blockchain-based platform, is a collaborative network created in 2016 to provide producers, suppliers, distributors and manufacturers with information about their ecosystem. Its goal? To allow them to share with consumers all data related to product safety.
Taking the example of Carrefour, which is not only one of the members of the network, but also one of the collaborators who worked on the development and growth of the IBM Food Trust system, we can clearly see the quality of the process.
!["Schéma]("https://coinaute.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/blockchain-carrefour-1024x512.jpg")
Farmer Connect : the blockchain as a link between small producers and consumers
Several trade groups have put their trust in IBM Trust Food logistics, including the Swiss start-up Farmer Connect. The company wants to guarantee the traceability of products such as cocoa, tea, spices and coffee while making it easier for consumers and producers to connect. A Series A round of funding from Itochu Corporation (a Japanese company that supplies commodities to manufacturers and retailers) worth $9 million was crucial for the company to develop its Farmer Connect software and Thank My Farmer web application. Investors from America, Europe and the company's founding partner Sucafina were key contributors to the success of the project.
Cocoa and coffee production is a highly opaque environment, due to the multitude of producers. The solution proposed by the Swiss start-up combines web application and software that allow individuals to trace the origin of products and at the same time financially support local farmers through donation programs. The reliable tracking and transparency offered by these different blockchain-based technologies have allowed them to expand. More and more companies are interested in this technology, like one of the world leaders in the coffee industry: Massimo Zanetti Beverage Group.
With its new sustainable coffee line Segafredo Soria, the company intends to take a step forward in product transparency and traceability using blockchain technology. In 2020, 44% of customers said it would be useful to have more information about producers, while 92% of Italian consumers felt the need to know the origin of products on the market (source: IBM & Morning Consult Europe). The group has been in contact with Farmer Connect in order to make this project a reality and to be able to start marketing this line worldwide in early 2022.
In addition to guaranteeing the safety of products thanks to blockchain technology, the Italian group was able to meet a customer need and thus ensure consumer trust and loyalty.
