Today NTI which is Australia’s leading truck insurer announced it was participating in a BeefLedger blockchain food provenance trial. Australia is the third largest beef producer in the world, and BeefLedger is targeting its 45,000 cattle producers.
The pilot will involve transporting cattle from South Australia’s Limestone Coast to a processing facility in New South Wales where it will be frozen for shipping to China. Asia’s rapidly increasing prosperity is driving demand for beef.
BeefLedger is a token driven platform with the eventual aim of tracking the cattle provenance from how they are reared through to the consumer.
“Research shows us that ethical standards and concerns for animal welfare, along with authenticity and proof of product origin, are amongst the top priorities for Chinese consumers. It’s also what’s driving consumer interest in Australian products,” said Warrick Powell, Chairman of BeefLedger.
Recent research conducted by Futerra jointly with the Consumer Goods Forum found that 70% of consumers are most interested in transparency about products. That compares to just 30% who are most interested in the company that made them. (provenance.org highlighted the research).
For its part, NTI is keen to support Australian businesses. “We’re excited by the prospects this presents across several streams of Australian industry: agriculture, animal welfare, transport & logistics,” said NTI’s CEO Tony Clark. “We’re committed to being specialists in our market, partnering with experts, and supporting hardworking Australians.”
Other initiatives
There’s another Beef focused startup called BeefChain based in Wyoming in the U.S. They are also member’s of IBM’s Food Trust initiative. In the UK the Food Standards Agency recently piloted using blockchain at a cattle slaughterhouse. Dairy Farmers of America is exploring blockchain with the ripe.io platform.
German startup TE-FOODS has a significant initiative for tracking pigs and other foods in Vietnam. They also recently partnered with French retail Auchan.
