Radical transparency and demand-driven food chain via blockchain

Amped and FoodInsights launched a project commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality that deploys blockchain technology to establish a demand-driven and transparent (short) food chain. This assignment was launched at the request of the Task Force Short Chain. The aim of this project is to arrive at insights on value creation of agricultural products and collect the evidence for this, which can lead to a paradigm shift in the food chain.

The Task Force Short Chain can accelerate this development within its network and will use technology to strengthen chains of trust between farmers and citizens.

Demand-driven chain with Utregs Supersap
The first use case

The first practical step is the realisation of a use case. This use case should lead to a Proof of Concept (PoC). For this, we set up a value chain with a blockchain platform. This value chain is based on transparency and demand management. The envisaged model must be scalable and easily applicable to other short-chain parties who (want to) work on demand management.

An important part of the use case is that we create a product passport that is the carrier of product information, from soil to mouth. Over time, this passport offers the possibility of adding other values to a product, such as carbon dioxide storage on the plot, water harvesting in the soil, biodiversity counts and nutrient values, minerals, trace elements, etc.

We see these as fundamental value carriers for the chain of the future. Blockchain technology not only validates relationships and activities in the chain. but can also monitor and record soil and product values and facilitate communication between farmer and consumer.

De producent voor deze use case is biologisch fruitteler William Pouw in Schalkwijk (Utrecht) en het testproduct voor vraagsturing is zijn reststroomproduct Utregs Supersap. William Pouw is gekozen omdat hij veel ervaring heeft met duurzaam bodembeheer en -gebruik, energiegebruik, reststromen, korte ketens en reguliere afzetmarkten. William Pouw is verbonden aan de Taskforce Korte Keten.

The producer for this use case is organic fruit grower William Pouw in Schalkwijk, Utrecht, and the test product for demand management is his residual stream product Utregs Supersap. William Pouw was chosen because he has extensive experience in sustainable soil management and use, energy use, residual streams, short chains and mainstream outlets. William Pouw is associated with the Task Force Short Chain.

The project
The possibilities of building these value additions as evidence are becoming clearer and more diverse. The application of blockchain technology and the new insights into value creation must now be taken up to explore and validate the glowing prospect. Blockchain is, of course, ‘just’ an application, but in combination with the chain parties in motion, it is a powerful tool.

Objectives:

  1. Mapping potential value propositions in the chain. We record this with a data passport for producers, realised with Blockchain technology. The data passport logs soil properties, energy consumption, (residual) flows, product information and the farm;
  2. In collaboration with William Pouw, set up the demand-driven chain for the residual stream product Utregs Supersap, using Blockchain technology. Specifically, this means fully building up the supply chain for Utregs Supersap, from soil to customer;
  3. Task Force Short Chain partners to cooperate with front-runner initiatives. In concrete terms, this means that we are investigating which further demand-driven chains can be initiated.

WANTED
Meanwhile, this blockchain technology has been delivered and we are looking for partners to work with us on applying the solution within other chains. Are you interested in this project? Let us know!