In 2007 one of pet owners’ worst nightmares was realized when it emerged that the pet food supply chain had been contaminated and was causing kidney failure and deaths in pets across North America and Europe. It took time to figure out, but the culprit was eventually identified as melamine crystals found in wheat gluten that had been sourced from a company in Asia. Massive pet food recalls ultimately affected many major brands because the supply chain was so integrated. Pet owners no longer knew which brands to trust because the tainted ingredient’s use had been so widespread throughout the industry. The incident had a devastating impact on a number of major brands, and pet owners to this day worry about the quality of the ingredients in the food they feed their animals. The good news is that with recent advances in the AgTech sector, which is now adopting IoT and blockchain technologies, companies can achieve a greater level of assurance for the growing pet supply market than ever before.

According to the American Pet Products Association (APPA), Americans are expected to spend over USD 72 billion on food, veterinary care, and other pet products in 2018 alone. More and more of us are adopting animal companions as well. Over 68% of US households have at least one pet, which accounts for about 84 million homes, up from 56% in 1988. Food safety and nutrition are of course on the frontline of keeping pets healthy and ensuring longer lives, with pet food accounting for the largest expenditure by far in the overall pet market.

Owners who have concerns about ingredient quality only have a few options, however. They can prepare homemade diets, but these can be time consuming and impractical for increasingly busy people. A recipe for a homemade diet could also be missing crucial breed- and size-specific ingredients necessary for a pet’s overall health. Purchasing from small, local manufacturers who are able to trace every ingredient can be a solution for some, but it’s an expensive process that not all pet owners can afford. And even a “made in America” label could be misleading, since individual ingredients could still be sourced from anywhere in the world. Until recently, consumers have had to trust that the complex food supply chain was being monitored by enough regulatory bodies to keep contamination out. But today, with innovation in blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, these worries could soon be set aside.

The food supply chain is fragmented and complex. In today’s global integrated markets, all the regulations in the world can’t guarantee that a bad player with an unsafe, or even accidentally contaminated product won’t find a way into the system, to then be distributed with the type of catastrophic results we saw in 2007. To mitigate this risk, buyers and suppliers need to go through complicated quality-assurance processes brokered by multiple intermediaries in order to complete transactions and ensure safety and quality. With a decentralized blockchain ledger driven by smart contracts, however, all of those middlemen can be done away with. Everyone within the ecosystem is able to verify each individual ingredient and its source in order to ensure quality and food safety. In the case of a food safety event like the one in 2007, the culprit can now be quickly identified, and the dissemination of the ingredient can be easily tracked so that tainted food can be recalled in days rather than months. With blockchain technology, suppliers and buyers alike are able to verify the quality of ingredients throughout the supply chain, since the smart contracts are transparent and cannot be tampered with by anyone. This speeds up transaction times, guaranteeing faster payments to suppliers, who are paid once contracts are fulfilled. Procurement logistics are also simplified, because buyers can track all ingredients from source to delivery.

IoT has been a part of AgTech in recent years, and the development team at Pavo has already deployed the technology for growing almonds and hazelnuts in Europe. Tree nuts are notorious for needing finely tuned growing and harvesting conditions, and now Pavo’s SaaS suite allows growers to monitor and analyze optimum growing, watering, and harvesting conditions in order to improve crop yields. Its IoT technology lets farmers make adjustments to their growth cycle, track supplier quality, and even monitor staff productivity. All of this can be done remotely from anywhere in the world through the platform’s web- and mobile-based interface. What’s unique is that the company is also integrating blockchain into its platform, and that means that growers will be able to allow buyers throughout the supply train to track quality right down to a specific harvest lot.

Advances in AgTech like these mean that suppliers and buyers can track the quality of food from seed to harvest to delivery. Buyers can also make sure that farmers have followed growing and packaging regulations for their jurisdiction, thereby simplifying logistics and eliminating the need for the endless trust brokers required for today’s procurement process. Not only can nutritional values be monitored, each ingredient’s growing conditions can also be tracked and verified. IoT systems ensure that ideal conditions are met at every step as well, from ideal watering and spraying protocols, to shipping environments and delivery windows. Any changes to the product at any stage in the process, from growing to delivery, are instantly tracked and visible throughout the blockchain. Together these technologies will revolutionize farming and food safety, allowing pet owners to rest easy that they are providing the best nutrition possible to their animal companions.
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