BeefLedger Limited Founder and Director Warwick Powell will discuss the design and development journey of the company’s BeefLedger Token (BLT), the world’s first beef provenance digital token at QUT, on 4 December 2017.

The BeefLedger Token (affectionately known as “BLT”) is being developed as part of the design and implementation of the world’s first application of distributed ledger or blockchain technology to the entire beef supply chain. The BLT will power the BeefLedger Blockchain and provide users with the value added benefits of access to credentialed provenance data, consumer feedback insights, and payments streamlining and security.

The BLT is one of a number of mechanisms by which people can participate and invest in, the development of the BeefLedger Blockchain platform.

BeefLedger recently executed its first generation blockchain-enabled smart contract enabled transaction involving the sale of cattle. This Alpha version smart contract confirms efficacy and applicability to the use case, and the learnings will be applied to specific design considerations on schema and data architecture.

BeefLedger is designed to be a wholesale data platform that delivers credentialed provenance data to consumers, driving value growth for the supply chain as a whole and delivering additional income to producers in recognition of product provenance excellence.

Our aim is to empower producers to serve the growing middle class markets of Asia, in particular China, and meet the market’s increasing expectations around provenance and safety. Our ledger also reduces substantially risks of food fraud, and as such, supports the strong reputation Australian beef producers already enjoy as safe, clean and green suppliers.

The industry has over the years invested substantially in improving productivity and management effectiveness through large and rich data analytics. BeefLedger builds on this existing body of investment to create the next wave of value based on consumer demands for credentialed provenance.

“People, especially in emerging markets, rightfully expect that they are getting what they pay for. And BeefLedger will ensure just that,” company director Warwick Powell said.

“On top of that, our research in the China market demonstrates that consumers will pay premiums for high levels of security in terms of product provenance. It’s about food safety, peace of mind and confidence that you’re getting products of excellence.

“Chinese consumers increasingly shop through their smart phone, where scanning QR Codes for product information and payments is increasingly common place. The end-to-end nature of BeefLedger meets this market expectation so that Australian beef remains at the forefront of Chinese consumer experiences.

“Through BeefLedger we will also be able to ensure producers benefit from delivering products of credentialed excellence. This results in a fairer more sustainable supply chain, which is better for everyone – including regional communities – over the long run,” he said.

Other benefits of the blockchain included streamlined payments throughout the supply chain, payments certainty and security, direct feedback to producers from consumers and transparency in auditability for compliance and Biosecurity purposes.

The BeefLedger team benefits from the advice and support of industry participants including producers, transporters, agents and processors, as well as from research collaborators from James Cook University, Queensland University of Technology and the Food Agility CRC in which BeefLedger is a founding member. As a community-industry collaboration, we look forwarding to deepening our collaborations with industry bodies such as Agforce and MLA.

BeefLedger Limited is a public unlisted Company Limited by Shares. Foundational directors are Warwick Powell, Anthony Dunn and Mark Dunworth. Foundational shareholders include cattle producers, farmers, technology specialists and academic supply chain specialists.