The Role of Fairfood’s Blockchain in Creating Better Traceability of Food

The pandemic of COVID-19 revealed so many issues with our current food supply chain system. The supply chain got shocked and the food manufacturers and processors were left empty-handed because they couldn’t get the raw ingredients. This highlighted the importance of transparency in the food chain and the importance of farmers.

Fairfood was working on the trend of storytelling and sharing product stories. They were following the mantra of radical transparency in the food supply chain so that they can empower the farmers. For this goal, they introduced an affordable and user-friendly blockchain-enabled transparency and traceability platform called “Trace”. Trace is an easy-to-use SaaS or software as a service that helps food brands to apply transparency to their product chains. It is a common observation that our food chains are scattered and splintered and there is a general lack of trust among the stakeholders. This can be eliminated by the application of total transparency in the system. The Blockchain is a powerful tool to get this done and trace is enabled by blockchain.

Trace can be applied even if the food manufacturer is not sure about their supply chain, it leaves the areas to be filled eventually. Another strength of Trace is that it doesn’t require the internet to work properly. Most of the farmers prefer SMS over the internet and Trace is designed in a way that it can work with SMS. After the completion of the chain, the farmers can use the public blockchain and can use the interface of Trace to send each other the digital goods. The trace can also generate a QR code for each batch that allows the users to trace and map the whole journey of the product.

The blockchain is gaining a lot of attraction among the industries including the agricultural industry, because of the transparency it offers and the versatility it has. Trace offers many features and they all start from the ease of transparency. The farmers can verify the purchases through SMS and by making the whole supply chain transparent, even the end-user will be able to see if the farmer is getting the fair share of their product. Unlike the ERP software, trace enables transparency. ERP software is completely different. Food ERP allows the food manufactures to effectively allocate the resources, while Trace allows them to make the whole process and supply chain transparent. Hundred percent transparency is not possible and will only be possible if every single food manufacturer adopts this practice. The trace also provides us with Safe and secure traceability, while the transparency is part of the whole process, traceability is what enables it to function the way it is intended. Implementing the network of nodes, the system carries out transactions in a safe and secure way as opposed to being controlled by just one entity.