From Farm to Pint: How Blockchain Enhances Transparency in Supply Chains

In this episode, I chat with Matthew Van Niekerk, CEO of Settlemint, about how blockchain technology is transforming supply chains. Matthew shares the origin story of Settlemint and explains how their platform makes it easier for companies to integrate blockchain functionalities, even if they lack in-house expertise.

We delve into the specifics of how blockchain can enhance transparency and trust across various industries, with a particular focus on agriculture and food and beverage sectors. Matthew also discusses how blockchain helps meet ESG requirements by improving data reliability and providing independently verifiable information. This is crucial for compliance and building consumer trust.

One of the standout examples Matthew shares is Settlemint's work with AB InBev, which uses blockchain to trace barley from farms to beer bottles, ensuring authenticity and engagement with consumers. Additionally, he highlights a significant project in India that enhances the livelihood of farmers by ensuring the accurate distribution of seeds using blockchain.

Tune in to learn how blockchain can not only streamline supply chain operations but also drive sustainability and social impact.

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Transcript

Matthew Van Niekerk: 0:03

What we didn't discuss is like, does blockchain replace supply chain management systems? And the answer to that is no, it augments and it supports and it makes the data potentially more trustworthy and certainly independently verifiable, which I think is something that most companies and certainly most consumers are increasingly looking for.

Tom Raftery: 0:27

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast, the number one podcast focusing on sustainability and supply chains, and I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Hi everyone. And welcome to episode 23 of the sustainable supply chain podcast. My name is Tom Raftery and I'm excited to be here with you today sharing the latest insights and trends in supply chain sustainability. Before we kick off today's show. I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to all of our podcasts amazing supporters. Your support has been instrumental in keeping the podcast going, and I'm really grateful for each and every one of you. If you're not already supporter, I'd like to encourage you to consider joining a community of like-minded individuals who are passionate about supply chain and sustainability. Supporting the podcast is easy and affordable with options starting as low as just three euros or dollars a month. That's less than the cost of a coffee. And your support will make a huge difference in keeping the show going strong. To become a supporter. You simply click on the support link in the show notes of this or. Any episode or visit. Tiny url.com/s S C pod. In today's episode, I'm going to be talking to Matthew from Settlemint. And in upcoming episodes. I'll be talking to Nick brown from Ansell. Andrei Danescu from Dexory, Elizabeth Corbett from AE Global and many more. So. If you're not already following this podcast, click on the follow button or subscribe depending on which application you're using to make sure you don't miss these great. Upcoming episodes. And as I said today, I'm going to be talking to Matthew from Settlemint. Matthew. Welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Matthew Van Niekerk: 2:14

Yeah, thanks, Tom. Thanks a lot for inviting me on the show. So, indeed, Matthew Van Niekerk, I'm the founder and CEO of a company called Settlemint. I'm originally from Canada, live in Belgium now. But yeah, happy to be here and have a good discussion about supply chain and sustainability.

Tom Raftery: 2:29

Fantastic. And what Matthew for people who are unaware is Settlemint.

Matthew Van Niekerk: 2:35

Yeah. So Settlemint is a company that I started back in 2016. It's a platform that makes it really easy to build blockchain applications. So we're it's a blockchain transformation platform. So if companies want to integrate blockchain functionalities into existing applications and workflows. If they don't have the in house talent to, to do that then any of their developers, their web two developers can be transformed. It's kind of like a jet pack for those guys to become a web three developer. So we make it super easy with a platform to integrate blockchain functionalities into for companies to integrate blockchain functionalities into their business.

Tom Raftery: 3:13

Okay. Is it kind of low code, no code?

Matthew Van Niekerk: 3:16

It has uh its, I would it’s low not, not, certainly not no code but low code inspired, I would say, but so we, we played on that, that balance between low code, no code for, for many years now. And when you get into no code and then as a, as a developer, you find yourself very quickly painted into a corner. So I'm trying to do something that's specific to my organization, but the template's not there. So the template doesn't fit it and I need to throw that out and start from scratch. Low code is a little bit better. And that a lot of the heavy lifting is, is done. But often the full customization is not possible. So we take it we're kind of a little bit. we're, we're a development environment where I can use the templates, but I can fully customize them. So we want to avoid that painting a developer into a corner where he can't, or she can't do exactly what she wants. So yeah, we, we have the templates, low code type approach, but then we say, okay, well, here's the source code and then they can make all the full customizations that they want.

Tom Raftery: 4:15

Okay. Fair enough. And Why? Why? What's the kind of origin story? What made you sit up one day and go, I know, I should start Settlemint.

Matthew Van Niekerk: 4:28

Great question. Yeah, no, it's a, I, before starting Settlemint, I spent about 12 years in, in banking and financial services. And yeah, I like to say I've officially done my time. So, I'm, I'm, I'm out, but still working with a lot of banks, but yeah, no, it's, it was a great experience. And in 2014 or so, I got into blockchain technology at the bank and I was working in capital markets and kind of on the border between business and IT and and wore an innovation manager hat at the time. And so in that I was looking at a lot of different technologies, but blockchain really caught me. I thought working in capital markets you know, it was always, when you see how you can gain efficiencies by working peer to peer. Instead of like a P to B to B to B to B to B to B to B to P kind of a scenario, which the capital markets is today. There's a lot of efficiencies that can be gained you know, replacing intermediaries and things like that. So I, I got caught by this technology and said, okay, well, financial markets transactions usually take T plus two or T plus three if it's a liquid asset. So from the moment the trade is done, it still takes two to three days to finally clear and settle the trade. And you know, that that's, there are a lot of historical reasons and controls that are put in place that were put in place before the internet and computers existed that have from a regulatory perspective been kind of enforced ever since. So I, I saw this technology, okay. The whole philosophy of it. Connecting different parties peer to peer without intermediaries and thought, okay, this, this, you know, back in 2014, I need to learn a lot more about this and. And better understand what can this mean for financial markets? That's where I, my starting point. So I, I, you know, started together with a couple of other colleagues a center of excellence for blockchain technology at the bank. I was focused of course, on capital markets. Others were focused on different areas like trade finance and, and payments and, and insurance. But you know, for my part, I was I'm a doer, you know, like I, I, I like to build things and get things built. And so, you know, I, I very quickly understood, okay, there's, there's a number of areas where we might be able to utilize this technology to become more efficient, to draw, pull out or remove the need for intermediaries and all kinds of stuff like that. So I, you know, went to, we had what was it around 2000 developers in house, and so I, I launched an, a call to action or a call to, for support. I called it the you know, please join the coalition of the willing. I want to build some experiments with blockchain tech. And so we had a first meeting, there was some interest and I said, okay, there's, I've got a list of eight use cases that I think might be interesting. We're going to start with the first three. And the first question that I was asked by, by the engineers who are very competent, very capable developers was like block what you know, so it was, yeah, and, and so there's a huge skill gap and it persists today. Less than 1 percent of developers in Europe have experience with blockchain technology or have the competence and, and, skill to build a production grade application with Blockchain tech. So, you know, I, I went down a number of paths trying to close that gap. Of course, the first thing you do is say, okay, well, let's, let's invest in training, get the skills and capabilities in house out. But of course, after, you know, let's say 12 months of training. These guys are competent and they've just made themselves the most highly sought after developers in the market. So they leave. And so that's kind of a painful journey to invest 12 months in getting the skills in house and then they leave. So what's the next option? Well, there are lots of consultancies like IBM or Accenture Deloitte that had blockchain teams. Okay, let's, let's work with them. Then, you know, you start the process with them. And they're like, okay, to do a proof of concept, it's going to take around eight to 12 months, and we're going to have, you know, like six people working on it. And it's like, well, you can assume or infer what the budgets of those kind of experiments would be. And I thought, okay, this is not a viable option. There's no way I'm going to get budget for this. And, and I was, you know, so my origin story of this on my side as the CEO of the company, is, you know, hitting the wall about you know, 50 times trying to get blockchain stuff started at a bank. And I thought, okay, there's going to be a better way. Not, not, not just a better way. There's gotta be a different way. So that's where the idea of Settlemint came, came about to build a platform that would make it easy for any of the 2000 developers we had at the bank to in, in, in in Belgium to be able to build those applications. And that was where the concept was born. My co founder Roderick I was working with him and a vendor client relationship, he was CTO of another company and agency in Belgium. And so we'd been working together for three years. When I was trying to do those experiments, one of my other approaches was, Okay, I'll just see if one of our other vendors can work on it. And so I said to him, like, one of the first cases I said to him was, Okay we've launched a crowdfunding platform to fund pre IPO companies. Can you build a secondary market for that using blockchain tech? And so he went away, did some earned E work and came back in six weeks later, called me up and said, okay, I've got a, I got an MVP, come check it out. And so ever since then it's just been like, okay. And you know, when, when we start, when I pitched to Roderick to, you know, start the company and, and, you know, both of us had pretty good careers going and we're just like you know, I said Roderick, here's the vision. What do you think? And this is in my backyard at a barbecue over beer, that type of thing. But, you know, and, and he said, look, I was 15 when the internet went boom. And so I was a bit too young to catch that wave. There's no way in hell I'm missing the second wave. So yeah, we, we both left our jobs and started Settlemint with the singular ambition, make it easy to build blockchain applications.

Tom Raftery: 10:11

Okay. Okay. And this is the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast, Matthew. So what are you doing here?

Matthew Van Niekerk: 10:21

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's interesting as supply chain in particular is, is there, there's, there's some challenges that are facing supply chain and specifically around the data. And data that as it flows throughout a supply chain that I think blockchain is, is offers, you know, a solid solution for and, you know, so that's why the first part about supply chain, right? So I think you know, some of our, our work, quite a bit of our work, but, you know, 40 percent of what we do over the last eight years has been centered around how do I get information from upstream and downstream or sorry, from a downstream, from, yeah, from upstream suppliers into how do I get that information? And how do I then capture it? And how can I trust it? And so that's, you know, when you talk about what are the principles behind blockchain, it's okay, trust and transparency. Use a common ledger to record information across multiple parties. And that's the peer to peer nature of it. So what we you know, I see what, you know, the, the, the utilization of blockchain technology to act as an efficient data, capture mechanism is very powerful in supply chains. So that's the first part about, you know, why talking about blockchain and in supply chain. I kind of sometimes look at it like you can almost view blockchain technology as, as a very effective systems integration tool. And when those systems are across organizational boundaries, that's where it really shines. And that's where it really starts to make sense. So how do I capture information in a network, in a supply chain that everybody should have a common view of the truth and, and, and, and for the current state and things like that. So that's where blockchain fits for me in, in supply chain. And on the sustainability side it kind of yeah, we and I'll maybe give an example like where does the sustainability start to come into play? And it's actually for the same reasons, collecting information throughout a supply chain, being able to independently verify that data is when you have access to it. Those are the attributes and we were working with AB InBev. So the largest brewer in the world and we worked with them for one of their brands. So they wanted to. be able to collect data throughout the supply chain for for barley. So they've got, you know, across Europe, something like 10, 000 farms that are providing barley to them. I was shocked. I was like, Oh, wow, that's a lot of barley. But, you know, and they wanted, and specifically in France is where we targeted with the first implementation and the first piloting. But, you know, they had they have this network of farmers that are providing barley. And they want to be able to, what started as like a, quite a simple supply chain tracking use case evolved into more of a sustainability angle as well. And I'll explain how that, that went. So if you want to get, from the a hundred farmers and the initial drive was to provide a more engaging brand experience. So it was the, the brand Leffe. And yeah, the the, the, the project was to be able to trace the origins of the barley that go into Leffe. And as it goes through, you know, from the farm to the cooperative to the silos where they store the grain to the malt through the malting process eventually to the brewery and then the distribution so that as a consumer of the beer, I can really understand the journey. And this is important. And that on itself is, you know, these, these kind of use cases, we started doing them back in 2018 already. But AB InBev was a little bit later. But providing that truth and trust and transparency throughout the supply chain is increasingly important today. Like, if I say it's locally sourced, prove it, you know, if I'm a provide, like, how do I prove that? And, and I think, you know, you can slap a label on any package and say it's locally sourced, but how do you, as a consumer, a discerning consumer wants proof. And the way that you can do that with blockchain is that, you know, if there's a QR code on it, then I can independently verify. From that from the chain and reconstruct all the data of that product throughout the supply chain about where it came from. And, you know, AB InBev myth is one example. Another one we did is, and I'm sorry, I'll get back to the sustainability part. But once you get that the initiatives that have been really interesting and kind of layering different types of utility that can be derived by using this technology is where it gets interesting. So, as it can, the first phase is getting that time stamping throughout the process. And being able to reconstruct that for the consumer so that, they scan a QR code on the product and then, ah, okay, this is the farmer that produced the barley that went into my beer. And what, what AB InBev did, which was really cool, they added also other things to keep to build engagement. And that was like including you know, recipes for food pairings that go well with Leffe. So, you know, consumers will spend time if they're a Leffe fan. Okay. That kind of a stew, what's the recipe for that? And then they can look it up and create the meal. And this creates a lot of brand value for AB InBev and specifically the brand Leffe. Now, once you get that network in place to start collecting that data, then it's okay, then in the future, it's like, what kind of data are we collecting? And as time has gone on and increasingly the importance of not just time stamping and meeting the farmer and recipes, but also ESG data becomes and sustainability related data becomes increasingly important. And, you know, with legislations that are coming in Europe that are like the CSRD, if the fines and penalties that can be levied if I'm noncompliant, are significant. If you take not, not AB InBev or others, but a lot of companies are operating on a few percentage points of margin. And if they get a fine for four or five or 6%, whatever the number is, how they could, they could go from a profit making to loss making. So there's. there's a big drive right now to be able to comply with, with legislation, of course. Now how do you collect that data? Cause the, the most difficult part of that data is scope three I think. Getting scope three emissions data from my supply chain. I've got two options. Either I use a carrot or I use a stick. Right. And I think most,

Tom Raftery: 16:54

or a combination?

Matthew Van Niekerk: 16:56

combination, a hybrid approach. Yeah, but I think with well, some of the companies we're working with, they were using a stick and what and if you, if you're not compliant and you're not providing this data, then you're, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're down in the list of the seven suppliers we have for what you're producing. So, yeah, and these kind of weights and scales are put in place for vendor selection and and things like that. So. Now that's the stick approach, but now if I've got that kind of a network in place, then I can also start collecting additional information in an efficient way from my suppliers and in efficient, but also standardized way. That's a huge thing to have the standardized formats. I think that's the ESRD and how it needs to be reported, but we can start, you know, putting in place the network that they're already using to provide information about the timestamps, to start collecting the, the sustainability or ESG related information. And once they start doing that, I can start offering incentives back to them through that same network. So that changes the paradigm a bit, either going from stick to carrot or going from part stick, part carrot, as you said kind of a hybrid solution.

Tom Raftery: 17:58

Mm-Hmm.

Matthew Van Niekerk: 17:59

So, yeah, I think there's getting we've seen this evolution in the market with supply with blockchain and supply chain, where it started is very much a story of consumer engagement and things like that moving to reporting for compliance on on sustainability initiatives, which then adds in the dimension of being able to offer a carrot instead of only using a stick. And then the third wave that this is more speculative, but what I think is going to happen is, is banks are not sitting on the sideline waiting for some kind of regulation to hit with them as well. They're starting to, you know, the increased interest in offering a sustainability linked financial products is, is huge. So there's a growing interest in that. And I think the most efficient way to do that will just be to start, and that, that can be in the form. One example that we were looking at is, is working capital solutions. So if you look at and I'll go back to the AB InBev example. If you take AB InBev they're a huge tier one banking client, right? And all of their suppliers could potentially need working capital solutions. And to get a sustainability linked financial products, like a working capital solution you know, I need the data because there'll be covenants that are in that those agreements, whether that's for working capital or for loans there's a reporting requirement around ESG that'll be linked to it. So again, it's all about the data flows and whether it's for trust and transparency with consumers, whether it's for collecting this sustainability sustainability relevant information and ESG relevant information or it's offering incentives or it's offering and a great incentive. Like maybe that's another form of the carrot. It's if I can offer a working capital solution for providing the data working, if a company like AB InBev is working together with a large bank then they can offer this, this product. And then that creates the incentive mechanisms to bring people on board to report accurately, correctly and persistently on sustainability data.

Tom Raftery: 19:53

Okay. Interesting. And. Is it just, I mean, I've seen several examples of supply chain and blockchain coming together. The majority of the instances I've seen are in the food and beverage area. I'm assuming a lot of that is down to the kind of increased requirement to be able to demonstrate farm to fork or farm to beer bottle or farm to pint glass, whatever it is. Are, are Exactly. Are there, are there other areas that it's impacting as well? Or why, why is it just food and beverage that I'm seeing? Am I missing something? Or is it primarily that? Or, what's your take there?

Matthew Van Niekerk: 20:37

Yeah, I think I'll give a short answer would be, I would say until now, most of it has been in the food and beverage industry. And yeah, I think if I had to kind of put my finger on what's the reason for that, I think the, no, actually, I'm not going to even speculate because I'd probably get it wrong, but, but, but when we talk about, and it's not different for other products, but I'm just thinking, well, could it be like health and safety concerns around food? And, and it's also possible that in the food and beverage sector, the consumers are becoming more discerning about the origins of what they're eating and what impact is it having on society? Whereas maybe for other products, it's, it's not seen as, I'm speculating so maybe, but I think that might have something to do with it and it's consumers are eating food and beverage every day. It's the most short, it's generally three times a day. So generally that might be the most, the first consumer product area that people feel it's, they can have an impact. And then, you know, what does that mean that it's not happening in other sectors? No, that's, that's certainly not the case. There's a lot of examples in, in mining as well a lot of interest in, in tracking and tracing where conflict minerals come from. And where they ethically sourced these kinds of things are, are, are really we see a lot of interest there. But also there's another initiative we're starting for battery battery life cycle management and tracking and tracing, you know, where did the battery come from? Where did the minerals that came, that went into the battery come from, but not stopping at, you know, the manufactured battery, but that battery is then imported to to a country. Then there is the distributor in the country. Then there's the installer, the inspector, the maintenance people. And then that battery eventually reaches end of life and it's recycled or disposed of in some way. And that's where, you know, we just, just kicking off an initiative to do kind of that circular flow for batteries in yeah. So that's another example that that I can speak to.

Tom Raftery: 22:36

Yeah, because there's a whole EV passport legislation issue coming on board, right? I'm sure. Is that what's kicking off your interest in batteries?

Matthew Van Niekerk: 22:46

Well, it's, yeah, it definitely, definitely, And I should say, you know, at Settlemint. We wouldn't build such a solution generally in by ourselves. So we're working with a consortium of around. I think it's four players right now that are in that industry in this country that want to be able to be prepared for when enforcement of the battery regulation will be in place, and that's not too far off. So they're getting started on, you know, getting getting ready to be compliant.

Tom Raftery: 23:16

Okay. And does that apply to, is it just EV batteries or is it batteries in general?

Matthew Van Niekerk: 23:22

Yeah, no, sorry for the, for the first phase, it's home batteries. So batteries that are installed in somebody's house, they've got solar panels and all that stuff. Yeah. And then, but of course the, once the model is built, then it's not a big leap to apply that to solar panels or, or car batteries might be a bit well, it'd be a different workflow of course, but but yeah, it's the same concept, it's product passports. Indeed.

Tom Raftery: 23:43

Yeah. What about the pharma industry? Because obviously if I'm thinking food and beverage, my suspicion would be there that people care about that because it's something that's going into your body. You know, and pharma similarly and even more importantly in many cases, I would have thought is, is it breaking into the pharma space as well?

Matthew Van Niekerk: 24:04

it is. It is. And, you know, there's a global organization called Pharma Ledger that really focuses on blockchain applications only in the pharmaceutical sector. So indeed, and whether I think I was reading is we, and what was that statistic, something like 20 to 25 percent of medicines in, that are distributed in, in I think it was Middle East Africa region are counterfeit some there was some W. H. O. study on that, and that is that's a huge risk. So I think there's a being able to prove the provenance of medicines is a great use case. And I think that's in reaction to things like that, that an organization like Pharma ledger set up to have pharma specific implementations on chain.

Tom Raftery: 24:49

Okay, okay. And where is this all headed? I mean, is it going to be blockchain for everything? Or is it just going to be sticking with foodbev, a bit of pharma, and a bit of EV battery or battery in general? You know, or where are we going to fall in that kind of spectrum?

Matthew Van Niekerk: 25:06

Yeah, yeah. I think blockchains a tool, right? Like it's, it's not a silver bullet for everything. It's, it's a tool in the toolbox and it should be applied where it makes sense. And, and so will it, you know, blockchain everywhere? If it makes sense. Yeah. I mean, why not? If it's gaining efficiencies, if it's making data not just data transmission, but data verification. If it's improving those processes, therefore improving, improving the security of systems and, and the ability of, of companies to access the data and for consumers to access the data and independently verify it. Then any, any industry where that's relevant, I think is is, is, is a candidate to use blockchain where, where it makes sense though, of course.

Tom Raftery: 25:45

Right. And go on.

Matthew Van Niekerk: 25:49

Yeah, I just wanted to because I think in the the ESG story or sustainability, I'd like to look at it from a one use case if you don't mind just where there's because I, I've heard a lot of, there've been a lot of high profile kind of blowups or implosions of, of blockchain initiatives in supply chain or in, in in trade finance and things like that. And what I, you know, when I, looking back and if you look at the postmortems that are written about these, these initiatives quite often it's that, you know, they, they, the, if, if you kind of summarize it. Yeah, they try to, you know, kind of eat the elephant in one bite instead of taking it step by step and taking a small piece where it really makes sense. And then going, you know, and scaling it out where it makes sense. But one, you know, but where does it have real impacts? I've mentioned a couple of things about EV and and the case of being able to incentivize great, better incentive mechanisms for providing information. But there's another one that we worked on in that's been live for already two years in India. That's the state of Jharkhand. And in the state of Jharkhand, it's, you know, I think it's 70 percent of the GDP of the state of Jharkhand is agriculture. And What the state does there is they provide seeds to local farmers and what there are about seven different steps in the distribution process. And of course, all the seeds that are distributed by the state are quality controlled. So there's no spurious seeds in, in the supply chain that's coming from them. But what what happens in such a scenario is that, you know, the, and, and, and every farmer is uniquely identified with the system they call the adhar. That's both a paper and the digital identity. Nine 98% of the population is, is onboarded to that platform. So what and what happens in, in the seed distribution process and the seed supply chain, then for the farmers? is that if, if I'm in, I have an entitlement for so much seed. But you know, if somebody further up the supply chain or one step away from me prefers to give my seats to somebody else, I've got a very tough path to follow to get what I'm entitled to and prove that I didn't get it. So that's and that was one thing. Another thing that was, was happening there's three parts of the story. But the first was, was not getting the correct allocation or not getting an allocation. The second is about, you know, spurious seeds entering the supply chain at one of those intermediary steps. So that and that, and of course, when you inject asparagus seeds, let's say in step two or three of the, the supply chain then it, there's potential and risk that everything for the remaining steps is contaminated because those spurious seeds, you know, whatever, disease they have spreads to the rest of the supply chain of the seeds that are being distributed. The third thing is that the state itself is doing the distribution. They had a really difficult time getting accurate reporting on the distribution itself, because with so many different intermediaries involved or so many steps in that supply chain. And distribution chain collecting once it's done. Okay, then we report on it. And that might take, you know, three weeks a month to get all the data back. And then another week or two to finalize and consolidate all the information and and hope. And that's when all of the information was there's no discrepancies. Right? So it's really an inefficient process to say, well, how successful was our seed distribution for this season. And so those were the kind of the conditions of that. And then the question comes, can we do this more efficiently with blockchain? And we worked on worked very closely with the state did built a bit of built a technical solution for that. And then worked hand in hand. We did, like, I think it was close to 30 train the trainer sessions, each of them having about, 20 to 25 representatives from the government that were then going to train throughout the supply chain on how to utilize the solution. So, and, you know, the result of that is that today there's about 1. 7 million farmers that are onboarded onto this, this, this platform. I think it was I always get shocked by the numbers, but something like 300. 30 million, I think it's 30 million kilos of seed has been distributed using it. And now, so what, what's the result of that? Okay. When seed is flowing through there, you know, when the, it's received by the farmer using their Adhar, that's uniquely identified as okay. They got did they get their allocation? Yes or no? We can immediately prove that. The second about the the control on spurious seeds entering the supply chain. Well, that's, that's no longer a factor because if they're not registered, as fully tested seeds, then they don't get passed on from one step to the next. And in terms of the state being able to say, well, was our distribution successful, there's no, no more collection of data from all those intermediaries and aggregation and, and quality checking. It's just, okay. These actions throughout the supply chain are recorded immediately as soon as the farmer gets the seed, we can update the report. And so anyways, there's a lot of benefit that's coming. And of course, what's the bigger picture here in the real story? It's about we're, we're having by implementing in this way and, and with the way that it's, it's working, this is having direct impact on the livelihood of, of local communities in India. And that's, you know, people that are dependent on this seed distribution to feed their family, to feed their community, they can, you know, there's, there's a lot higher probability that they're going to be able to do that now without any disruption in the, in the supply chain. So there's a lot of real efficiency gain, but you know, the part that I like is the human impact and that's from a sustainability perspective. And. You know, the more the, and if you talk about ESG more on the S side, I would say, but having a real social impact on improving the livelihoods of farmers in rural India in the state of Jharkhand. That's, that's really yeah, I think it's a great example of how blockchain can be used in supply chain. Again, it's an agricultural use case, but the impact is so clear and transparent that it's, it's really I think a good example of how this technology can have impact.

Tom Raftery: 31:47

Okay. Could this be transferred, this kind of technology be transferred into other industries where it allows transparency of data across suppliers and n-tier supply chains? Because that's really the issue, isn't it? For a lot of reporting, it's lack of visibility of all kinds of information, emissions particularly, but all kinds of information down through n tier supply chains.

Matthew Van Niekerk: 32:14

Yeah. The short answer is yes, for sure. The, and I, where, where do I, and why do I say that so kind of confidently? I think it's fine to be able to report, but I mean, there's enough examples in other industries, automotive in particular, where companies are falsifying information about have had, have had issues with falsification of test results, for example,

Tom Raftery: 32:36

Dieselgate,

Matthew Van Niekerk: 32:37

and Yes, I didn't want to mention, I didn't want to mention the manufacturer, but you know who we're talking about, but at any rate, I think, you know, when you can connect you know, the, and, and where, how can blockchain have an impact when you remove the human intermediary and in the provisioning of data, i. e. connecting directly through sensors and IOT to information flowing on chain then there's, okay, you, you, it's less manual work and the probability of a human, let's call it human error entering the process is, is essentially removed. So I think You know, that that might also be a reason coming back to why is it less prevalent in other sectors? Maybe it's, you know, the the implementation might be slightly more complex, more integration work required and things like that. But, but I think when you can, you know, get the information coming straight from the source and that source is a is a machine or a sensor, and then it's not just blockchain, then you start applying AI to see are there anomalies in the data. That might indicate that there's something either defective with the device or somebody's, you know, surrounded the device with an oxygen infusing device that will then make the CO2 level seem lower, whatever it might be. But, you know, you can start to apply not just blockchain, but AI and machine learning to start to have data that can be trusted and data that can be independently verified and whether that independent verification is, is by a consumer, a regulator and of course the company itself or independent watchdogs. But, I mean, the point is to get the data in a form that is when it should be provided publicly, it is provided publicly and not just a company saying, here's my data, but here's independently verifiable data. That I, you know, from different types of analysis can be proven that it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, of course yeah, I should, shouldn't overemphasize, well, I shouldn't make it sound better than it is, but I mean, blockchain is garbage in garbage out. So if, if something is recorded, that's wrong then it's, it's recorded wrong, but the blockchain doesn't know and doesn't care. It's just, you know, the information is recorded. Okay. So I think that that's where, you know, controls and different systems to detect anomalies are important to have in place in such a system as well. But yeah, I think other industries for sure. I think the implementations could be a bit more complex due to the integration with different devices. And by doing that, also the need to potential need to apply other technologies like AI and machine learning to detect anomalies. Make sure that alerts and triggers are set up for that. But yeah, just a few thoughts to share on other industries as well.

Tom Raftery: 35:13

cool. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now, Matthew. Is there any question I didn't ask that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to think about?

Matthew Van Niekerk: 35:27

Yeah, I think and maybe just go to go back to something I mentioned earlier. It's, you know, I think supply chains have been working and maybe I'll elaborate a bit, but, but keep it short because we're running it coming to the end. But indeed, I think supply chains have worked for centuries for millennia, right? And blockchain technology hasn't been part of that story. So do supply chains work without it? Yes, of course, they do. But I think in pretty much every industry, there's there's needs and requirements to either get more efficient or provide data in a more transparent and trustable way. And I think that the where from, and this is more from the blockchain side of things, those, those are basically what blockchain is created to do, create peer to peer systems where data can be trusted and can be shared in a, in a seamless way. And I go back to that statement I made about blockchain acting as as kind of like the ultimate systems integration tool because you can connect to different systems and then collect data throughout in a very light way. So it's not replacing systems, it's just augmenting them. I think maybe that's the point I'm trying to get to. And what we didn't discuss is like, does blockchain replace supply chain management systems? And the answer to that is no, it, you know, it augments and it supports and it makes the data potentially more trustworthy and certainly independently verifiable, which I think is something that most companies and certainly most consumers are increasingly looking for.

Tom Raftery: 36:51

Great, great, superb. Matthew, if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Matthew Van Niekerk: 37:01

Yeah, there's two. Well, for me, LinkedIn is probably the best place. I'm pretty active there. And for that, you know, I'm always sharing information that about supply chain, about other areas of application for the technology. And of course, Settlemint's website, we have a library of mini books and guides. And we just recently finished the survey on this, let's say the state of blockchain and supply chain. So it'd be, if anyone wants to dig deeper and see, you know, we did a survey of it was a 200 CIOs and CTOs that looked into blockchain and supply chain. And, and some really interesting findings there just to call it two of them. And hopefully that'll pique your interest, but it was interesting, surprising for me. Well, it's interesting, surprising is that about 78% of companies have already done some form of experimentation with blockchain and about half of them have done something in production. So there's a lot of, and that could be a limited pilot type experience. But, you know, so it's interesting, I, I, I was actually in, let's say, encouraged to hear that. Okay, that's it's, it's getting a lot of steam throughout and that, that wasn't only agriculture and, and, and or food and Bev so looking across. So the, it's happening out there. I think that the banks tend to be a lot more noisy about it. But supply chain and manufacturing, we're just getting on with it. So. There's just to round that off. There's, there's a whole section on our website for useful insights into blockchain in different industries. The results of this recent survey for supply chain and also Settlemint's. LinkedIn site is a good place to keep up with what's going on on our side of the world.

Tom Raftery: 38:33

Cool. Cool. I'll put links to those in the show notes as well. Great. Matthew, that's been fascinating. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Matthew Van Niekerk: 38:40

Well, thanks so much for having me and talk to you soon. Take care.

Tom Raftery: 38:43

Okay. Thank you all for tuning into this episode of the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast with me, Tom Raftery. Each week, thousands of supply chain professionals listen to this show. If you or your organization want to connect with this dedicated audience, consider becoming a sponsor. You can opt for exclusive episode branding where you choose the guests or a personalized 30 second ad roll. It's a unique opportunity to reach industry experts and influencers. For more details, hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIn, or drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com. Together, let's shape the future of sustainable supply chains. Thanks. Catch you all next time.