We are talking more and more about transparency in food, and the need for consumers to know more about the products they consume. Blockchain technology is mentioned as a solution to provide this transparency. Beyond the marketing trend, what does this actually consist of, from a logistics chain and food transport point of view? What is the role of the transporter in the traceability of the sectors?
On the importance of transport in food traceability today
To meet consumer demands, the sectors are getting underway
Many brands are trying to bring more transparency to consumers, by showing the faces of breeders or farmers on their packaging, by depicting the journey of a product, or by directing consumers to their website, to tell a story around the product. As long as it remains story-telling, it remains in the hands of the brands. But when they decide to go further, and provide consumers with the proof of this marketing discourse, they need to collaborate with the entire sector: producers, processors, and distributors are mobilized. Between each of these links, the transport stages should not be neglected: they are stakeholders in the sector, and are absolutely key in monitoring traceability and respecting the specifications of a product.
How many trucks between the fields and the plate?
Today, most processed products contain ingredients from all four corners of the world: from the most qualitative (vanilla from Madagascar, cocoa from Ecuador, curry from India, etc.) to the most functional (soy proteins from Argentina, palm oil from Brazil, etc.), they are selected by manufacturers for their quality or their properties (giving taste, consistency, etc.)
With the trend of eat local, we observe particular attention paid to the origin of these ingredients. Increasingly, when the origin does not provide a guarantee of quality, brands try to find a more local supply.
French food sectors whose traceability is ensured by Connecting Food (editor’s note: 1st food transparency platform in Europe) are generally structured in the same way: from production to the first processing plant, distances are limited. They are done by truck. Between the first and the second transformation, on the other hand, (and all the following stages) the distances lengthen. In fact, it will be easier to export powdered milk, flour, or vacuum-packed cut meat than the raw materials themselves. Between the field and the plate, there can then be a train, a freighter, or even a plane. So many intermediaries make it essential to embark on a blockchain food transparency project.
Blockchain: a technology with many use cases in logistics
Blockchain is a technology that allows data to be stored in a decentralized manner, thereby ensuring the security of transactions and the inviolability of data. Literally, blockchain is a chain of blocks, which is replicated in as many occurrences as there are participants in the network.
- Public blockchains are open to everyone: the information recorded there is “mined” and accessible to all participants. They found their rise with the advent of Bitcoin in the 2010s.
- Private blockchains, on the other hand, are governed by consortium rules, and information is only shared between consortium members. They are more suited to business and require less energy (because no mining).
If the Gartner firm estimated that blockchain applied to the field of logistics was at the top of the “ hype cycle » in 2019 it remains a cutting-edge technology that many have difficulty understanding. At Connecting Food, we are convinced that the contribution of a technology can only be measured in terms of its concrete use cases. Thus, in logistics, blockchain is valued because it makes it possible to:
- Digitize transactional processes between several actors
- Ensure that all parties to a contract obtain the same information at the same time
- Reduce fraud, human errors, transit and shipping times
- Accelerate audit and customs clearance procedures for goods transport
Why blockchain and not just “the cloud”?
Hosting databases on cloud infrastructures today already makes it possible to share digital information between several players (e.g. dropbox, Google Drive, etc.), but not to secure it as blockchain does.
Indeed, to add or modify information in a blockchain, you must add a block. It is impossible to modify the data directly because each block is sealed. Every new block is connected to the old blocks of the chain, and each blockchain is replicated on all knots of the network. This is what creates the blockchain.
Be careful though, blockchain is not the solution to all traceability issues: if no business controls are applied to the data, product quality is not guaranteed. This is why Connecting Food has developed a fully digital quality audit tool. The information recorded on the blockchain is compared to the product specifications to ensure that each batch complies with what it should be. If this is not the case, real-time alerts are triggered to alert the recipient of the product.
In the food industry more than elsewhere, carriers must be reactive
Most large agri-food groups have undertaken or will undertake food transparency projects via blockchain. Among our clients, we already have world-class players in sectors as important as wheat, milk, eggs and pork. They are distributors, brands or processors; and they need to rely on agile partners to ensure total traceability of their sectors. This goes through the transporters, who record a lot of information useful for product traceability.
" To make the link between batches of raw, semi-finished and finished product, we absolutely need to know how the carrier manages these batches. Does he put them in one or more trucks, store them before delivering them, and subdivide the lots upon delivery? " explains Julien Destres, senior project manager at Connecting Food.
To collaborate on a blockchain project, it is not necessary to have already implemented a blockchain solution in your company, nor to be an expert in this new technology. “ Most of the time, our interlocutors do not know about blockchain, and are discovering it with us. They are quite reassured when we explain to them that our platform will recover the data they already produce, and that there is no need to do any development on their own. " reassures Jean-Michel Thomas, technical director at Connecting Food.
To follow the product through all the stages of transformation and until distribution, we must recover the data which is recorded throughout the chain, and which today does not communicate with each other. Our blockchain platform interfaces with the software already in place at the various players, or with on-board IOT systems, to retrieve data as soon as it is produced: that's why we talk about "real-time" traceability.
How to obtain traceability data?
Today, regulations already require carriers to record a certain amount of data, which must be presented in the event of an audit by an auditor. It is this data that Connecting Food initially uses. Then, if the client wishes to improve their processes, or benefit from the real-time digital audit module that we offer, we can support them in setting up suitable IOT, in order to collect more data, or better qualify them. We are also in contact with certain suppliers via the Ferme Digitale association, to which the manufacturer Exotic Systems also belongs.
In conclusion, the message we want to send to food transporters is a call to work together: we are already working with some of their clients, or some of their clients' clients. They can wait for the latter to ask them to take part in the project, or position themselves at the forefront of this transition towards more transparency and themselves carry out a real-time traceability project using blockchain.
The year 2020 will be that of the deployment of our solutions in a certain number of sectors, in France and abroad. And you, are you ready to embark on the blockchain road?
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