Foodchain SpA: Bringing blockchain transparency to supply chains and digital systems

Author: Truebit

Compiled by: ChainCatcher

In this episode of Series;Verified, we interviewed Davide Costa, co-founder of Foodchain SpA, who is bringing transparency of blockchain to digital information. Foodchain's approach ensures quality and implements value generation functions in supply chains and digital systems, which are severely affected by constantly changing whims and variables. Truebit is excited to discuss the revolutionary potential of combining blockchain with supply chains.

Welcome! Please tell us more about the fascinating origins of Foodchain.

The story of Foodchain dates back to 2012 when I met Marco Vitale, who is now the CEO of Foodchain SpA, on BitcoinTalk.org, an online forum dedicated to Bitcoin, blockchain technology, and cryptocurrencies. At that time, although the Italian blockchain community was almost non-existent, Marco and I spent an entire day researching the mechanisms of blockchain technology and discussing potential applications beyond the financial sector. This was the beginning of our collaboration.

We launched a project that initially ventured into the Italian food industry, aiming to protect the "Made in Italy" brand, combat product counterfeiting, and address the Italian Sounding phenomenon. The food supply chain is extremely complex and heavily regulated, so we had to invest a lot of research and analysis to leverage the potential of blockchain technology and develop innovative solutions to protect one of the most counterfeited industries in the world.

Thus, we came up with a traceability digital tool that enables businesses and organizations in the industry to achieve transparency and visibility in the supply chain, enhance product quality, and encourage safe and sustainable processes.

The opportunity to showcase our solution arose during the 2015 Milan Expo, dedicated to technology, innovation, culture, and tradition, and their relationship with food and diet. We launched Foodchain as the world's first blockchain-driven tool for transparency and traceability in the food supply chain, and the tremendous success encouraged us to officially launch Foodchain SpA in 2016.

As we gained expertise over the years, we adjusted and replicated our model across the entire digital field (not just the food industry). Today, we provide projects involving digital identity and electronic invoicing for industries such as textiles, pharmaceuticals, energy, and even public administration.

The Quadrans Foundation is an inseparable part of Foodchain. Can you talk about the concept of the Quadrans Foundation and its role both within and outside of Foodchain?

To understand the motivation behind the concept of the Quadrans Foundation, we first need to outline the evolution of Foodchain SpA.

Foodchain's first experiment began in 2014 on the Bitcoin blockchain. However, the lack of stability in Bitcoin's price made it difficult for users to lay a solid foundation for their business models, which could severely undermine the sustainability of enterprises.

In July 2015, Ethereum went live, and the introduction of smart contracts on the Ethereum network was a great way to leverage functionality to enhance traceability in the supply chain, with very low impact on transaction costs.

However, the price of Ether, the currency of the Ethereum network, quickly soared, and financial speculation on cryptocurrencies threatened our solution. With no alternative blockchain available, we decided to design a brand new infrastructure with the right characteristics. A significant R&D effort led to the creation of an innovative and unique blockchain, now known as Quadrans.

The Quadrans blockchain shares various features with Ethereum; however, we introduced significant stability for the network currency, Quadrans Coin. Considering that unpredictable prices can have a huge impact on the performance and execution of blockchain projects, we decided to eliminate cryptocurrency price volatility from the equation to ensure long-term stability and reduce operational costs. This makes Quadrans a suitable infrastructure for large systems, such as industrial projects and government applications.

In 2018, we decided to transfer our expertise in blockchain technology to a non-profit organization established under Swiss law, the Quadrans Foundation. This allows Quadrans to focus on the technological development of enabling open-source models for the community (including Foodchain).

Building on years of work by the first team, the foundation now collaborates with government agencies, institutions, and businesses worldwide, serving as a selected technical partner for international projects such as the European Trick project "Product data traceability information management through blockchain interoperability and public announcements."

Currently, there are over 40 members associated with the Quadrans Foundation, sharing a common vision regarding the role of blockchain in future digital scenarios. Among the members are top experts specializing in various impacts of blockchain (technicians, lawyers, professors, etc.), including Professor Massimiliano Sala and TrueBit founder Jason Teutsch, who are respectively the chairman and a member of the foundation's crypto committee.

In recent days, the Quadrans Foundation released the latest version of its white paper—a technical document revealing the hard work of the foundation's crypto committee in developing a hybrid blockchain based on PoS (Proof of Stake) and PoW (Proof of Work) with a three-tier network and a new innovative consensus protocol.

The possibilities of enhancing supply chain functionalities through blockchain are limitless. What is the real-world integration that Foodchain is most proud of?

The real-world integrations of our platform are diverse, and we have deployed the traceability model across multiple industry sectors.

We are proud of the collaboration between Foodchain and the citrus production area of Sicily, which involves member companies adopting the Foodchain decentralized application (DApp) and enabling certifying bodies to record PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) information on the blockchain.

We have also contributed to the textile industry. We received research funding through the Regione Lombardia funding program "FashionTech." We collaborated with three other major partners—covering textile production and software customization—to practically demonstrate how to achieve excellence in product, process, and social sustainability using blockchain.

We have also applied our blockchain technology to the forestry sector to achieve transparent and complete monitoring of the wood production process. Today, forest certification schemes and European regulations require increased traceability of information in the wood products supply chain. The "Wood-chain project," funded by PEFC International, tests and promotes the application of blockchain technology as an innovative IT solution for forestry and wood production applications. The project's scope is to provide transparency and traceability for wood and wood products according to PEFC Chain of Custody certification (CoC).

Blockchain can strengthen supply chain processes at every level, from producers to manufacturers to consumers. What benefits have you seen at each stage?

The first step to efficiently deploying our solution is always a comprehensive analysis of its operating environment. Typically, this is a good time for companies to examine their entire procedures, improve processes, identify waste in the supply chain, estimate costs, and move towards digitization.

Blockchain technology is a powerful tool for producers and manufacturers because it can create digital passports for products. This is used to improve value propositions by increasing the value of information, such as origin and provenance, technologies used in the production process, manufacturing processes, and distribution.

The collected information is permanently recorded on the blockchain ledger, ensuring the integrity and security of data in the supply chain. Producers and manufacturers can leverage these qualities to protect their brands from counterfeiting and use authentic information to support product quality claims.

Blockchain-based solutions are also a powerful tool for enhancing brand reputation and conveying added value to consumers through transparency and integrity of information. Through labels such as QR codes, end consumers can access information recorded on the blockchain to verify claims and make more informed purchasing decisions.

How can Truebit best contribute to Foodchain's efforts?

We closely follow the achievements of the Truebit team and are deeply fascinated by them. We see the foundation for collaboration in more than one aspect.

At the infrastructure level, we can combine Truebit technology with the Foodchain architecture to provide interoperability between systems and accelerate the adoption of the technology. The Quadrans blockchain is also fully compatible with the Ethereum network, facilitating the integration of Truebit and providing a favorable environment for the scalability of operations with reduced gas costs.

Another synergy includes the development of new applications and strategic use cases that can bring value to the industry by enhancing the computational capabilities of systems and addressing problems through large-scale solutions.

For example, we are exploring the implementation of new solutions that can integrate satellite imagery into the blockchain. The traceability of wood and wood products and the agricultural food sector are the most promising economic markets, where blockchain featuring Earth Observation (EO) data can have a significant impact on the overall quality of natural products starting from field monitoring and traceability, as well as being part of the industry's increasing digitization.

EO data can be viewed as a verifiable source of information representing the oracle itself—a third-party service that provides external information to smart contracts, acting as a bridge between the blockchain and the real world.

Truebit tasks can complement Quadrans to execute complex EO data processing algorithms on-chain, ensuring data sourcing and validation according to standardized models (ontologies, such as https://ontospace.wordpress.com/).

With standardized data available for creating geospatial mapping services and products (such as certification and traceability of natural products), Truebit tasks can create on-chain proofs of EO data processing execution.

Another Truebit task can be applied to EO-processed data, ensuring data validation and sourcing, enabling data to feed into agricultural companies and institutions for machine learning models for crop management time series analysis. Some use cases identified for such applications include:

For traceability and product sourcing:

For insurance:

Interested in exploring this topic further? Check out Davide's Ask Me Anything [AMA] on Reddit on Monday, December 6, 2021.

FOODCHAIN SPA: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/foodchain-spa/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/foodchainspa Twitter: https://twitter.com/FoodChainIT Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foodchainspa/

QUADRANS FOUNDATION: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/quadrans-foundation Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quadransfoundation Twitter: https://twitter.com/QuadransF Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quadrans_foundation/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Quadrans/ Telegram: t.me/quadrans