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Can Blockchain And Chip Technology Improve Beef Sourcing Transparency?

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HerdX

Both blockchain and chip technologies have the potential to transform agriculture, and companies are starting to take the first steps to make it happen. Brazilian steakhouse Fogo de Chão is collaborating with HerdX to provide greater transparency in food sourcing by using technology. Fogo de Chão's CEO Barry McGowan and HerdX's CTO Austin Adams discussed their recent partnership in an interview.

Fogo de Chão is an authentic Brazilian steakhouse, or churrascaria, which specializes in fire-roasting meats by utilizing the centuries-old Southern Brazilian cooking technique of churrasco. It has 52 locations throughout Brazil, the United States, Mexico and the Middle East. HerdX is an agri-tech company that develops and manufactures technology such as tags and other tools to increase transparency in the livestock industry. Their products help ranchers gain new insights into their herds, enhance animal wellbeing and bring clean, traceable food to retailers and families. HerdX provides ranch solutions and extensive supply chain traceability.

"HerdX smart tags monitor individual movement relative to the herd and identify at-risk animals sooner. It uses smart tags and data to help farmers and ranchers monitor animal movement, identify health anomalies and increase operational efficiencies, giving them new insights, so they can know their herds even better. HerdX also uses blockchain technology to securely track transactions along the production cycle of livestock, creating secure traceability and greater transparency between producers and consumers," McGowan says.

HerdX

HerdX uses a variety of sensors at ranches and feedlots that add to the animal monitoring data produced by the tags. All of this data is sent to edge computing systems. Using machine learning, the system is able to filter, process and analyze animal health data locally and then make decisions that provide insights to ranchers and feedlot operators. The HerdX app helps increase operational efficiency, provides daily insights to producers and enables traceability across the supply chain. By working with partners in every part of the supply chain, it uniquely delivers the critical provenance that establishes transparency and trust from farmer to table.

"We utilize many open source tools to accomplish our goals. We work with many cloud-native technologies like Kubernetes and Hyperledger to create a scalable and manageable IoT platform that integrates a blockchain application. This allows supply chain participants to cooperate in providing traceability to the end consumer. We use machine learning in the cloud and at the edge to continually train our operational models for efficiency and to provide better health monitoring," Adams explains.

With partners like Fogo, HerdX will provide a QR code to give the consumer the opportunity to learn, hear from and digitally meet the ranchers and producers themselves. Consumers are interested in knowing where their food comes from. They want to know that their food is safe, sustainable and responsibly raised. HerdX plans to empower guests of Fogo to know which farm their beef originated from simply by scanning a QR code with their phone. The code leads to a web page that tells the guest all about the origins of the beef down to the exact ranch where it was raised, and the story or legacy of the rancher who cared for the cattle. Guests may also learn through this dedicated web page what kind of diet and environment the livestock was provided.

Fogo and HerdX are preparing for a testing phase. The level of detail HerdX’s technology affords consumers, as well as cattle ranchers, has yet to be seen on a large scale among the restaurant and CPG industries. Fogo believes the transparency of a supply chain that utilizes this open-source technology will become more commonplace in restaurants as consumers continue to strive for responsible food consumption. Over time, this will no longer be information that is nice to have but rather it will be something the consumer expects when dining out or purchasing meat products at the local grocery store.