Connecting Food. Connecting Trust.

How it began: Lack of food transparency

In 2018, a survey carried out by The Center of Food Integrity (CFI) showed that only 33% of the consumers were confident about the safety level of the food they eat. This discovery is indeed an alarming sign for food production and agri-food industries. The survey also displayed that 21% will never repurchase the product that has been part of a recall. Continuous scandals in the food industry have, unfortunately, led to such results.

● How to bring food transparency upwards?

● How to reconstruct consumers’ trust?

● How to promote quality food in a tangible and objective way?

These three hows had been haunting Maxine and Stefano.

Maxine and Stefano are experienced professionals in the food industry, they were engaging with various prestigious names in the industry such as Nestle, Danone, Maison du Cafe, Mars, and Andros. In 2011, they both joined the Agri-food group Avril, respectively as Director of Strategy and Marketing Director. Until 2016, they decided to stop thinking about the hows and started acting instead.

Connecting Food was formed in the same year, with a goal to provide the answers for the hows.

Connecting Food. Connecting Trust.

We are living in an era in which technologies play a crucial role. Having considered this as an advantage, Connecting Food leverages new technologies to bring an impactful solution to the agrifood industry.

Connecting Food’s blockchain-based platform was designed to track the products batch-by-batch as they move through the supply chain using digital auditing to verify compliance. Blockchain is a digital ledger shared between several actors, where each participant must approve each transaction. In Connecting Food’s blockchain, each actor must authorize the recording of specified traceability information, as well as what will be visible to all participants in the network.

However, blockchain is not the sole solution for food traceability. Connecting Food also presented a module called LiveAudit© to provide coherency checks, ensuring consistency and compliance of the information entered into the system. In case of non-compliance, the clients will be alerted instantly to the problem, and corresponding batches on their dashboard. Audit results are recorded on the blockchain, and accessible via computer or mobile phone.

The blockchain and the LiveAudit© module put on a solid base for the Connecting Food web-app - an ultimate solution that the company developed to answer the hows. Customers simply need to open the camera app on their mobile phones and scan the QR tag on the food packaging. Doing so, customers are instantaneously directed to Connecting Food’s web application, where they will be able to receive information about the product's origin, the harvest date of raw materials, storing conditions, the process of producing the products, and many more factors.

Examples of criteria that can be audited on the wheat chain for bread making. Credit to Connecting Food.

By simply scanning the QR code, the product’s transparency becomes clear.

Food transparency for the future

‘Products that are audited in real-time as they are produced’ - this phrase means only batches with 100% compliance make it to the end of the chain. Connecting Food’s technology has been a savior for several brands, retailers, farmers, cooperatives; and they chose to become the firm’s clients in order to prove that they do supply clean products as promised, to avoid expensive/damaging product recalls, and to regain consumers’ trust towards their brands.

Connecting Food is one of the 56 food-tech start-ups in the RisingFoodStars (RFS) network by EIT Food. Check out the short video clip about Connecting Food at RFS here. The network has been making very huge positive impacts on outstanding agrifood start-ups who are driving the future of food. Application for the RFS network is open until April 10, 2021.

The Connecting Food team.