From Pond To Port: Blockchain Is Helping Indian Shrimp Farmers To Enter Global Trade

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Mark, thank you so much for joining us here today. So we're going to be talking about what you're doing in terms of traceability in the agriculture and agriculture related or food products supply chain.

So tell us about, before we get into what you're doing and where you're doing it, and that includes India, tell us about what made you enter this particular space of traceability and how did the whole chain develop as an organization and the services that it offers today?

Yeah, so myself and my co-founder Jason Berryhill come from the mobile technology backgrounds. So we worked with the Reliance and Airtels of the world beforehand and we collaborated separately. So Jason was in the sustainability office of XL Axiata who owns or owned Idea in India.

And we worked, he worked for them in their Indonesia, in their Indonesia brand. And we partnered up with my old startup to provide mobile services for small scale fishers. And when we implemented that, it made us aware of the conditions and things at the first stages of supply chains.

And that was really the inspiration for HoldChain, which is a blockchain based traceability solution. We work with Algorand as our blockchain partner to collect primary data based on standards like GS1, who promulgates the barcode, to aggregate, to collect primary data across supply chains and facilitate data sharing and more transparency across those supply chains.

And so you chose fisheries because you were already acquainted with that industry or was that a bigger problem to solve?

Well, we call it the Frank Sinatra test of traceability. So if you can do it there, you can do it anywhere. Because the seafood supply chains, whether aquaculture like farm shrimp in India, or wild fisheries like small scale tuna boats in Indonesia or Philippines, are extremely fragmented.

And so achieving the impact opportunity is so significant because such a vast supermajority of producers are small scale. And because of the hyper fragmentation of those supply chains are very challenging to collect primary data from. So we did start there.

It was driven by our familiarity, but it was also because of the ultimate proof of concept that that would provide for the system more broadly.

So, can you walk us through how it would work? So let's say I'm an exporter. And since you said you're working in shrimp, I'm assuming it's in the eastern part of India or the east coast of India. And how would it work on a shipment or a set of shipments? Where does it connect to a server or a platform where the buyer can see it? And how is that chain established?

Yeah. So I'll give you the current state and then I'm happy and then I can give you a vision for the near term future. Right.

Because the long term future has so many different implications to it that it's hard to say. But in the immediate term, we typically so there's this vision of collecting from the individual farmer or fisher. We do do that, but it's it's in it's I'd say a small subset of the time.

Most of the time we're collecting from a co-op manager, that first receiver or that first buyer in the supply chain who is currently aggregating data for their purchasing. Right. So what we try to do is mirror the current workflows and provide digitalization or automation to facilitate a reduction in the burden of compliance with the market requirements for documentation.

And in doing so, it de-risks the trade through that supply chain. Right. So the way that it works tangibly, typically at the first receiver, they're already digitalized.

So there is typically an unstructured spreadsheet. Whole chain allows for that spreadsheet to just be uploaded to the system. Whole chain then structures that spreadsheet according to global dialogue on seafood traceability data standards.

And then we're able to then work with their their next receiver, which would be like an exporter or a packer or depending on the, you know, it could be a bulk packer or it could be a repacker who's putting it into individual retail units. But either way, we create a digital twin of that product. And then the whole chain then follows the movement of goods through transfers, transformations and other events pursuant to the GS1 standard.

Right. So it's standardised critical tracking events. And then we establish segment specific key data elements according to that, the details of that particular supply chain.

I'm going to come to the buyers end for in a moment. But so how would this be different from, let's say, a barcode kind of application creation and then the identity conferred to that particular box or carton of fishes?

So advanced labeling is one of our capabilities. Right. But it provides labeling has a subset of the requirements for the broader market.

Right. And I'll address the broader market when when you get to the point of the the buyer side, because they're they are the ones that are actually making the biggest impact in the data requirements for the industry. But yet, I mean, barcoding doesn't really come into the picture even until there's a processor.

Right. So in order to collect data from the first mile of that supply chain, so between the primary producer and the first offtaker, we do have, as I said, the the prime, the first purchaser is typically uploading a spreadsheet. We do have a mobile app that is that has been used.

We've used that in Vanilla in Madagascar and in shrimp. But in Mexico, and there's individual farmer ID cards that the co-op manager can scan. It automatically populates much of their fixed data.

Then they add the volume of raw material that's received from that individual producer. And then it's fed into that that first aggregation step. 

So that is a way that we can collect it. But typically, it's a spreadsheet that's uploaded and then structured according to the requirements of the market.

And where does the conversion to blockchain happen? And what's the key advantage of having it on a blockchain platform?

Yeah, so we hash every record on Algorand blockchain. And the rationale for that, I mean, even the first mile, right. So from the point of data entry, every record in whole chain is hashed against blockchain.

And that's to provide an added level of trust, right, that the data itself hasn't been tampered with. And that's the primary use case for us, right? It's that trust, since supply chain traceability is a big trust proposition, to have blockchain as an added level of assurance is helpful, right.

Even when we do get what bad data that we don't really think bad data exists, there might be incorrect data. But then we have a permanent record of that oversight. And giving benefit of the doubt that that can be an accidental or just a learning opportunity for the producer or processor to improve their data entry.

It informs an intervention that we can then notify them that the data is incorrect. And here's create a new record. And then we can have the incorrect and the correct record side by side to have a permanent record of that transaction.

And tell us now from the buyer's side. So what are buyers typically looking for in terms of data? And how much real time data? And what are the specific points or pointers that they look for? And how are they pulling this data and analyzing it?

Yeah, so there's an increasing demand, I'd say inspired by policy, but not driven by policy for enhanced traceability through supply chains. And that manifests through so like the US FDA has a law that has just been pushed back a couple years, but will come that requires traceability based on this GS1 standard from the boat or the farm all the way to the point of sale. It is event based, it is quite detailed.

In other instances, there's even further requirement for data. Global dialogue on seafood traceability, for example, just sticking with the seafood example, has applied that GS1 standard. It's called EPCIS.

It's an acronym that's not that important. But just to state that GS1 has multiple standards, and there's one particular applies the seafood specific key data elements to the standard critical tracking events. And that has further detail things like vessel things like gear type, fishing area, so on and so forth.

So it has even further detail. And what that helps is it de-risks the procurement in those supply chains from a number of different ways like the ESG methods, so environmental issues, social issues and governance issues, but then also is like food safety for recall, prevention and response for outbreak response, you know, God forbid, there'd be another pandemic or anything. But it does help maintain, I'll just probably say the resilience of that supply chain.

And you're working in many countries, including Mexico, and you're in Madagascar and Ecuador, and in India now as well. So what are the kind of, are these all seafood linked or are there other sectors as well?

No, no, no. So we've reapplied the method and actually recently published a data framework with GS1 for deforestation conversion free beef and leather. So we're taking the same methodology.

So whole chain was designed specifically to be neutral, agnostic to the category that we're tracing to the commodity category. And we do apply those segment specific key data elements. And actually we've established an engagement agreement with the UN Global Compact, which is the agency at the UN that interfaces with the private sector to convene industries and expand global data standardization so that it facilitates more equitable trade, right?

Because if you have these common data elements from seafood to beef and leather, we're starting to work in, we started working in vanilla, soy, other tree crops, like we're scoping programs in coffee, cocoa. Yeah, I mean, just onward, right? And so it is that same methodology of you convene an industry around an industry and policy makers.

So you do the public private partnership model, convene everybody, agree on the key data elements and the critical tracking events. Standardize that in the industry, and then it enables scalability, right? So everywhere from, if you look at electrical plugs to gas pumps to mobile networks, these all required standardization in order to scale, right?

Because otherwise, just use email as an example. If I could only send you an email, if we were both using iCloud, that's not going to scale, right? So similarly, we're at that crossroads in the evolution of data sharing through supply chains.

I think COVID really highlighted the need for this.

And in a classic case, who's your customer? As in, who's your paying customer?

Yeah. So we work with, we have a plan for everybody in supply chains, including a free plan for individual farmers and fishers. So we are inclusive.

And actually, one of the big use cases is facilitating market access for small scale producers, which is a lot of the work that we do in Mexico, for example. We work from the perspective, I'll just say of the coastal community. So working with a cooperative and a cooperative manager to provide more equitable market access for their constituents.

Right. So we do have a plan for everybody.

Yeah. And if you were to look at the people who are now signing up, would they be different from, let's say, the ones who you've been working with in the last few years? As in, sort of newer types of use cases, are they coming to you or are you going to them?

We get a lot of inbound. I'd say the use cases are driven by the market challenge. Right.

So beef and leather has an issue around deforestation, emissions. Seafood has a different set of issues around labor rights or overfishing, illegal fishing, things like that, because the governance is very different from land-based agriculture to maritime supply chains. But that's what really drives the use case, is the market demand for solving a specific challenge.

And the reality is having these supply chain improvements or impact programs, it's very challenging to have solutions without traceability and transparency, because it's very hard to get assurances associated with any specific raw materials. Right. So in contrast to traceability, the way that we do it, mapping, monitoring, certification solutions have their place, but because they don't follow the movement of goods, they're susceptible to the information being disconnected from the raw materials and losing their provenance in things like transformation events.

So if you were to certify a cattle farm or a wild fishery, when those animals get brought into a processing facility and a cow gets turned into steak or leather and a fish gets portioned out, they get co-mingled with other locations, and that can get lost. So because we track at a batch or lot level, we're able to maintain that traceability of the batches and lots into the batches and lots out.

So if you were to come to a market like India, and, you know, let's say a small, I mean, most producers in the agriculture food chain in countries like India are small. They have small land holdings and they produce small and we can see it in other dairy products like milk.

One of the biggest challenges is the collection efficiency for, let's say, the larger milk producers or the dairy companies. So in this case, would a small, let's say, individual producer who is, let's say, has a small shrimp farm, for example, sign up on your platform or would the aggregator or the manager go and do that for him or her? And how would that process work?

Yeah, typically it's the co-op manager that will do it. But we are able to support the individual producer. And in the near future, and when I mean near future, I mean this year, we will have a new version of whole chain being released that does have further self sign up capabilities for the call it the supply chain to invite all of their inputs into the network.

And the benefit for this, for those individual producers, as you described, is that it does provide them more direct connections into the market so that their their production and their products are more readily accessible to the developed market. Right.

So that milk producer, that milk supply chain, and it's interesting that you mentioned that because I'm here in Ireland doing dairy implementation, it does help aggregate and provide that digital connection that functions like a twin to the physical supply chain. So it does make the it facilitates the trade to be much more seamless.

And the people who use it, I mean, your end users, whether on the buyer side or on the seller side, may not know about blockchain or how it links with the physical world that they experience. So how are they convinced of this offering?

I mean, and the security and all the attributes that it brings to the table?

Yeah, we actually we present blockchain as a feature, but not as the buzzword. Right. Facilitating the trade and then getting the first like the evidence of value proposition is really the way to do it.

So we are very modestly priced. And what we do very modestly priced and our use, we spent a lot of time on usability, particularly in that first mile, because it's easy to use, relatively speaking, and the cost is relatively modest. We reduce the the risk aversion for participation.

We provide assurances. And this is fact that we don't share data without permission. So everything is permission based.

And once the once they see the first value, then it's a pretty straightforward scale up our opportunity from there. So, for example, the the small scale Mexican shrimp fishermen that we work with have renewed and increased their use of whole chain because of the benefit that they've had in reduction of compliance burdens for their sales.

And obviously, each country and sometimes even regions within countries will have different laws. And is that your headache or is it the buyer's lookout? How does that work?

It's everyone's headache. No, it's it's really not a headache. We really see it as an opportunity.

I'm just I'm just kind of being lighthearted about it. It is it's an opportunity, actually. So because our our system functions like a templating engine, we're able to adjust the data collection to reflect policy accordingly.

And then it becomes an opportunity for our customers and our subscribers to further differentiate themselves in the market by being more ready to trade. So it becomes a sales opportunity for them to differentiate themselves as an easier supplier to work with, with the market that has readiness for compliance with specific policies.

So what's the kind of transaction volume that you're seeing now on whole chain or what is it like on any given day?

I couldn't really say. I can say that the that the scalability has been there. So the increase in usage as the market demand has been requiring and requesting more transparency is there.

So more users. But I mean, we're in the the millions of pounds of raw material at this point being traced. I wouldn't feel comfortable going into anything specific as far as the the volumes, especially on a per customer basis.

But we're well into the millions of pounds of raw materials being traced on a monthly basis. So it's significant at this point.

And from a buyer's point of view, does their system analyze all this information and throw out one or two key data points? Or do buyers look for a couple of data points?

So you said you're collecting a lot of data. What are the two or three things that most people really look for, let's say in shrimps or some other?

Yeah. Yeah. We're about to publish a core of common key data elements.

So location, batch number, time, date, product description. You know, those like you said, the master data that's relative to a specific barcode represents some of that common data across commodity categories. And then but, you know, while while those those few key data elements I mentioned are common across supply chains, the market is requiring far more detail than just that core.

Right. So they are looking for, I'd say, a next level of detail. There is some dependency on the commodity category, but seafood in particular does have a geolocation relevance because of the sustainability realities of ensuring that it's not coming from an overfished fishery or a troubled farm.

Those are some of the nuances between commodities. But that like product description, batch number, origin, you know, those are some of the volume, you know, unit of measure, like those basics are common across supply chains.

And as customers, when I say customers, I mean, the buyers have used your platform, have used blockchain, I mean, and blockchain that lies behind it. What has changed in their assessment of the way or what has changed in the way they deal with their suppliers?

I mean, do you feel that confidence levels have increased and that's translated into something? And conversely, as well, I mean, for those who've signed up as sellers, has their business grown or are there any changes?

Yeah, this we do have some specifics because at the outset of the business, we did some seafood trade ourselves, honestly, to learn and feel the empathy with our customer base, which was a very quick lesson. But yeah, we do see that there's from the buyer side, there is definitely a increase in confidence in their supply chains when you have transparency. I think that's natural with anything.

When people are giving you added levels of disclosure, you feel a lot more confident with them. And then for the sellers, there is without question, an increase in velocity of sales. So we do see efficiencies in the supply chain because of there is visibility, you do see where it's a value leakage happens.

And then from the sales perspective, and I'll give you some insight into that and consumer is when there's more visibility into a supply chain, the consumer doesn't just make a product decision, they're making a brand decision. And that gives them that added level of trust in that brand. And we have seen sales increases pretty consistently when there is that added level of transparency.

And then on the trade perspective, because there is this reality of policy, it does provide preference to brands that are more ready than not to comply with this future where we believe everything is going to be traceable.

And are solutions like whole chain more aligned for fragmented supplier markets or are large institutional producers also, are they also kind of potential partners?

Yeah. I mean, most of our customers are large institutional users, right? Midsize to large, I'd say.

And even vertical supply chains do have benefits. So, we have worked in large vertically integrated companies where a remote site doesn't necessarily communicate all that well with the sales organization in the center. There's gaps in supply for a given order and or there's an accidental mislabeling in a plant and that certain product without traceability could be subject to a recall.

So, there are these just, whether it's a small scale producer like we saw, like I was mentioning in Mexico or a large vertically integrated corporation, there are these just workflow efficiencies where it just de-risks even vertically integrated companies for resilience of supply. Right. And because if there is more visibility between like a sales office in the United States, communicating back to a farm in the Philippines, there's a level of communication that without some kind of data sharing isn't going to be seamless.

So, you're saying a large company needs something like this as an internal customer as much as an external.

Exactly. And it really does function that way. Where if you have a remote production site relative to a sales office, it really is an internal customer.

So, the dynamics are very similar.

And is there any peculiarity that you've seen as you work between countries, including in India and which people should know of even maybe from an operational point or even a policy standpoint, because all of this finally goes on to facilitate greater trade, which may not be the most, let's say desired word right now, but it would, I mean..

It's reality.

So, yeah, what are the sort of gaps that we can need to fill?

Yeah. And I mean, geopolitics aside, I mean, there is a trade is a reality. I mean, it makes the world turn in many ways.

Right. So, I don't think trade is going away. The peculiarities on a market to market basis are really just policy.

So, in the way that it manifests is just acceptance of the imminent need for data sharing and data collection and transparency or not. But in every market, there are some companies that are leaning into sustainability and being transparent more than not. And then there are companies in any given country that are more reticent to that and more skeptical of that.

Right. And so, again, I'd say the nuances from country to country are more individual policy driven, which does reflect on just degrees of how many companies are more or less ready. But beyond that, the fundamental comes down to the market, particularly, and those companies that are leaning forward on sustainability are typically more ready to do traceability.

And those that are more skeptical of sustainability are less ready to do traceability. Right. And that's more or less the way that the nuances come about.

And then that next level of nuance is related to like digital literacy. So, if a company has digitalized things like do they have an ERP or digital record keeping or if they're still spreadsheets and clipboards, that's where you do get varying degrees of readiness.

And is your system accessible or could, let's say, customs and let's say the food FAO or, I mean, depending on which country it is, the food administrative authority, would they want or would they have the ability to look at this data if they want to, particularly for goods that are coming in?

It wouldn't be an automatic. They'd have to ask permission and we would ask permission of the user to share it. Right.

So, we would not share it automatically.

And would the have there been such queries or you wouldn't know because it's really the user who's sharing it?

We know we haven't had those government inquiries yet. We have had certification interventions, though, where a certifier will ask to have greater assurance that data that's being shared. And in those instances, we connect the two parties together and they can share between them.

Right. But we don't get involved in the negotiations between and when there's trade, we don't get involved in selling people's products or anything and pricing discussions. They have those discussions on their own.

And we share data according to the requests between the the buyer and seller. But it's all permission based and we don't get into that.

And how are you seeing the India market and where do you see opportunity and maybe what are the areas you feel when you talk to buyers, for example, where you feel there could be or there ought to be quicker adoption of something like this?

Yeah, you know, I think that there is a great opportunity. Indonesia and Mexico are showing an incredible example. Ireland, as well, is setting an amazing example for others, I think, where the governments are leaning in.

They're not forcing people to do traceability, but they are leaning in and making statements on establishing national systems for either sustainability or traceability. And again, while we're not huge advocates on forcing anyone to do anything, leadership, by example, definitely motivates the market. Right.

So I think India, particularly just given the lack of the lack of visibility in some of the key commodity categories, shrimp being an example, I think India would have a massive trade opportunity to establish some national policies on traceability. Again, as a leadership by example and the government doing it themselves and providing some support to further digitalize the community, an opportunity would be between like the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the telecoms industry to provide mobile services to those small scale producers. That would quickly accelerate adoption into digitalization that could then feed into a more mature, you know, food, digital food system.

I think that would be an incredible opportunity for India. And I think it would also address perceptions that have been well documented in the shrimp industry there. It would provide greater assurances on the readiness to comply with corporate sustainability policies in the more value added markets.

Right.

And you talked about mobile services. Is that because in some markets, mobile is not much penetrated and therefore this has to be part of the package?

No, it's quite the other. I mean it from the opposite. I mean, because mobile technology is so widely adopted that deploying like mobile, like mobile and agri using the buzzword, those types of like mobile services for small scale producers. GSMA has some great use cases from around the world where they've deployed mobile services for producers.

It provides some incredible capacity building and digital literacy that the mobile networks could do. And that would upskill those producers. It would provide value back to the networks, too.

Right. So the networks would have more of these value added services from huge subscriber bases that provides value to their core businesses by having them more ready to do data sharing about their production up into the more institutional aspects of the supply chains. So it is actually quite the opposite, which was because mobile technology is so widely distributed, it's a foundational capability to then provide digital literacy to those producers and then have them more upskilled and ready to share data into the institutional aspects of the supply chains.

Last question. So you said that you're in Ireland, you're exploring something on the dairy industry front.

Are there any such or other examples that are on your plate for the next, in the foreseeable future, which, let's say, people who are not or people who look at this or hear this say that, OK, I'm into producing, let's say, wheat or rice.

Oh, yeah.

Which are all being exported. And I could also look at this.

Absolutely. Grain is definitely something we're doing. Where a use case, there's two use cases, just general provenance and food security.

So if there's food insecure locations, they have visibility to where there's raw material being produced and available. And then like we're right now starting to deploy in small scale shea butter supply chains across five countries in West Africa. That's a new use case for us in the tree crops.

So coffee, cocoa, shea, tree nuts, etc. So grains and those tree crops are, I'd say, next on the horizon for us.

Right. And Mark, sort of a supplementary last question. So you worked in large organizations like Unilever.

And I mean, Unilever is half a food company, if not more. So do you see all of this feeding and plugging into the larger supply chains of these giant companies?

For sure. Yeah. Soup, soap and ice cream.

Right. Yeah. And furthermore, I mean, even in other markets, like the same principles apply.

And we've just been asked to provide a proof of concept into energy raw materials. So coal, liquid, natural gas, like minerals for EV batteries, like these are all different use cases that have a lot of overlapping similarities. Right.

So very large organizations are looking at this because they have massive supply chain risk, especially with the volatility in the world right now. And I don't mean geopolitics. I mean, the climate change, the, I mean, just changing climate alone is a massive supply chain risk.

Right. So if raw material sources are going to shift, there's a need for greater redundancy in supply chains. There's a need for greater visibility.

Yeah. I mean, the bigger the organization, the bigger the supply chain risk. Yeah.

Yes, they have more resource, but they also have enormous appetites for raw materials to maintain their production scale.

Right. Mark, it's been a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for joining me.

It's been a pleasure. Yeah. No, thank you.

Thank you. We're grateful and we're very grateful for being accepted and working in your country.

You're most welcome.