Open Food Supply Chains
= "A growing number of startups such as Real Time Farms and Foodtree are hacking the system to meet people’s growing demand for more information about who and how their food is produced. They are crowdsourcing previously unavailable data and packaging it in a format that helps consumers make more informed food choices". [1]
Discussion
Bo Fishback:
"The difference is that today our technological progress is more focused on the flow on information as opposed to goods. It’s not about moving hard goods faster or centralizing operations for the sake of efficiency; it’s about sharing information faster and allowing even highly distributed people and sets of activities to work together efficiently. In one of my all-time favorite insights the author Michael Lewis said, “By its nature the Internet undermined anyone whose status depended on a privileged access to information.” While this is becoming increasingly true in many fields, it is finally becoming a reality in the food industry.
This move towards transparency allows an entirely new type of empowered buyer. Companies are springing up all over to the place to facilitate this transition. As a simple starting point, if you’re curious about where the food in your pantry came from, today you can probably find out with a great deal of effort, but tomorrow it will be much easier thanks to technology. As we’ve seen time and time again, transparency and education can be the seed for lasting change." (http://www.foodandtechconnect.com/site/2011/09/20/bo-fishback-on-hacking-the-food-system-its-different-this-time/)
Examples
- chocolate open supply chain, with 'choc-o-lot' number, see: http://www.askinosie.com/How-We-Do-It.aspx
- wool open supply chain with 'baacode' number, see: http://baacode.icebreaker.com/site/baacode/index.html