Traceable from egg to fish

Mislabeled fish has become a global problem with research showing that more than 20 percent of fish is not as advertised, often an inferior, cheaper alternative that is not as healthy or even dangerous to eat. This is why EY Skye, has developed a blockchain solution on SAP Cloud Platform that can help minimize risks, so the fish you want is the fish you get. The solution tracks each fish along its supply chain, creating a digital twin for each fish, a data point that gives salmon producers, retailers, restaurants, and consumers more confidence in the product.

“It’s important to distributors, restaurants, markets, and, of course, customers to be able to trace each fish through a value chain.” said Lars Torp, partner at EY Skye.   “The more partners that participate in the supply chain, the better it is,” Torp said. “We think it’s important to share the data to ensure integrity of the seafood up and down the supply chain.” As eggs become fish and fish are cut into filets, for example, it’s noted in a blockchain. “Even if the fish continues on in another product, like a sauce, another digital twin is created,” Torp said.

It's evidence that both restaurateurs and consumers are interested in the topic, Torp said. This is why we’re focused on a consumer app, too. If pressure comes from the consumer to adopt this technology, businesses are more likely to act.” Future components of the solution will be able to add temperature data to the supply chain, helping to show all parties that the fish is being stored properly. “If you’re flying fish from China to Japan and it’s an 8-hour flight, you know you’ll need so many kilograms of ice. But what if the plane is delayed? What can be done?” Torp said. “There’s opportunity for huge improvement in this area, and it ties directly into the blockchain.” Meanwhile, innovations in pallet technology—embedded sensors in new recyclable plastic pallets instead of traditional wood—can also help accelerate adoption of the EY Skye fish solution and similar solutions.

Can work with any supply chain

“This solution can work with any supply chain: food, medicine, phones. Anything where temperature is important to the transportation and shelf life of the product. There’s a lot of white space,” Torp said.

EY Skye chose the fish industry to start because, although it’s hundreds of years old, it’s immature when it comes to implementing digital solutions, Torp said. “It’s a really big industry and they’re very eager to leverage technologies that can help business and the ultimate customers feel better about what they’re eating.”

Meet Skye at the conference 2019, see the link to this conference here.
An early version of this solution was presented at the SBN Conference 2018.  See the link here.

This article on SBN was published 20/03/2019.

Link to intervju published by SAP where above text was copied