Overview:

• We found 30-50 % of the value of bulk commodities is lost due to supply chain inefficiencies and intermediaries.

• 3 POC’s initiated by Challenge Advisory including with the 7^th largest European commodity trader and food processor.

Following the 2017 blockchain funding boom, our client raised $4million to build an end to end blockchain for the food and agriculture supply chain in Europe.

Distributed ledgers have the potential to create transformational change in agriculture, ranging from food safety and supply chain optimisation to food traceability. The client’s blockchain was initially built with the purpose to act as an end-end marketplace for food and agriculture, reduce the number of supply chain intermediaries and create transparency for the end consumer and producer. However, the client was acutely aware of the challenges in disrupting age-old supply chains. As such, two blockchain capabilities were developed. The initial goal of an end to end marketplace would be on the clients public blockchain, while specific client needs would be addressed on a private blockchain.

Challenges:

•  Agriculture is a conservative industry, with historically slow adoption rates at the ground level, and difficulties exist in creating transformational change across complicated vertical supply chains. 
• Adoption of emerging technologies starts with a focused need, where the technology acts as an enabler. The client’s solution had vast uses cases but no strategic focus.
• The client lacked the necessary relationships and market analysis to identify which use case, market segment and market needs provided the greatest commercial potential.

Strategy:

• Identify high potential blockchain use cases within agriculture; supply chain optimisation, food safety, food traceability and commodity trading.  
• Leverage our network to conduct qualitative interviews and focus groups to establish key challenges experienced by stakeholders across target verticals and use cases. 
• Conduct quantitative forecasting and analysis to identify market attractiveness; demand forecasting, entrance barrier analysis, value chain assessments, regulatory environments, and competitive intensity analysis.  
• Initiate proof of concept with target users and market segments to build an ‘Innovation Portfolio’. Test and evaluate value creation hypothesis.

Outcome:

• A focus on utilising the clients blockchain for commodity trading. We found 30-50 % of the value of bulk commodities is lost due to supply chain inefficiencies and intermediaries.
• Food traceability and food safety use cases presented bigger adoption challenges and were structurally unattractive markets. Strong regulatory environment from the EU also played a key role.
• Strategic focus on the European grain supply chain and addressing key challenges including; blending of stock, double handing, fragmented paper-based systems amongst others.
• 3 POC’s initiated by Challenge Advisory including with the 7^th largest European commodity trader and food processor.