Food quality, consumer trust, traceability, transparency, recalls are all words you have heard before. This might not sound so urgent or scary but it is becoming increasingly important. Some retailers have realized they could solve many issues by simply shortening the chain and leaving out the middle man. This would then result in more control over the chain. So no more independent slaughterhouses, cutting companies, packaging..? This sounds like a perfect solution, right?
There are many reasons why this is actually not an optimal solution. Utilization is an essential parameter to consider. In each step of the chain, there are waste or side products. Turns out all these parties in the chain (slaughter, cutting, packaging, etc..) don’t just have one customer (the end consumer or the retailer) but actually have multiple. An example is the side products that are being sold to dog food producers. If a retailer now decides to control this chain then actually they are taking over multiple chains. This is not part of their business model and rightly so.
So how then can we achieve the same result without consolidating and shortening the chain? At Unova, we realized that the optimal way to do this is to make use of Data! And not just data, but trusted data, and an ecosystem backed by software that makes sure food quality, consumer trust, traceability, transparency and recalls are all taken care of. Almost sounds too good to be true?
So why has this not been done in the past? 
One would almost expect that this kind of system exists. Turns out companies have tried but were missing one key ingredient. An independent blockchain-backed Ecosystem where nobody owns the data and nobody can manipulate it. Sounds pretty obvious. If you use a normal database, who will own this database? Can someone manipulate it? Why would anyone trust this data? What if something in the chain goes wrong can we trust this database to store the truth? All very good questions were raised in the past which blocked a full traceability system being built. With the increasing capabilities and technological improvements in Blockchain technology finally, a solution suddenly became possible. Now, it was time to build all the software which makes use of this backend tech, which is what we did!
So why join now?
If you are proud of your superior product and processes. Don’t you wish to get all the benefits from this? Why not show the end consumer that you are responsible for this great quality meat? It will not take long before government regulation will make blockchain-backed traceability mandatory and consumers expect it. Why not increase your reputation and revenue by being first as opposed to being one of the companies that lag behind? Can you risk losing this race?