As more food companies adopt blockchain technology, processors, retailers, and consumers will gain access to detailed information about the journey food takes from the field to the table. However, traceability alone overlooks a critical aspect that consumers prioritize when purchasing food: taste. “Regardless of sustainability or sourcing, taste remains the primary criterion,” stated Riccardo Accolla, the director of digital food science at Ripe.io, in an interview with Food Dive. “If it doesn’t taste good, consumers won’t repurchase it, and producers won’t want to grow it again.”
Ripe.io, which employs blockchain and similar distributed ledger technologies to monitor food products throughout the supply chain, is now venturing into flavor tracing. Recently, the company announced a collaboration with FlavorWiki, which offers a digital app that enables consumers to assess taste. Accolla explained that this partnership will allow clients to understand how their products taste at various stages of production and within the supply chain. Initially, the focus will be on fruits and vegetables, providing producers, retailers, and consumers with insights into the taste profile of a product at every phase of the food chain, along with information on how long it is expected to remain flavorful.
According to Daniel Protz, CEO of FlavorWiki, this collaboration aims to address a significant issue in agriculture: the inconsistency of product quality. He emphasized that producers, retailers, and restaurants need to know how a product harvested in Africa will taste by the time it reaches a consumer’s plate in Europe, particularly regarding qualities that aren’t immediately apparent. “It looks and tastes exactly how the consumer desires,” Protz noted. “However, tracing that through the entire distribution chain is challenging, as the product may change from ‘tasting great and juicy’ to ‘not good at all.’”
While various stakeholders in the supply chain would benefit from this information, Protz suggested organizing it in a flowchart format. He pointed out that blockchain is an ideal medium for making this information as meaningful as possible due to its inherent traceability. For instance, a tomato producer could utilize the system to record data on soil composition and weather conditions during growth, as well as track the product’s journey through cold chain logistics and storage. By integrating FlavorWiki’s taste data, the producer can gain insights into consumer reactions to taste throughout the supply chain, identifying peak freshness and flavor, along with best practices for cultivation and transportation.
FlavorWiki’s taste platform complements this tracking system effectively. While traditional taste tests often rely on panels and complex statistical analyses, FlavorWiki offers a user-friendly app where consumers can choose between two descriptors for a product, such as which flavor is more pronounced or which attribute they notice first. Protz highlighted that the app’s simplicity, combined with its advanced predictive algorithms, enables immediate statistically significant feedback on food taste. This can be applied across various products within the supply chain and adapted to assess the taste of different apple varieties or reformulated consumer packaged goods (CPG).
Although the initial focus of the partnership is on produce, Accolla indicated that Ripe.io plans to eventually expand to include CPG companies that are critically evaluating their ingredients. This could assist manufacturers in testing new ingredients, replacing existing ones, or seeking more sustainable options. For example, it could aid in selecting between two farms producing organic vanilla. Additionally, it could be employed to verify the source and taste of frequently counterfeited ingredients or to customize products to better match consumer preferences.
“It could generate a permanent record of data surrounding personal nutrition, but we are not quite there yet,” Accolla noted. Ripe.io is promoting this service to its existing clients, and Accolla reported significant excitement within the industry regarding the partnership, particularly among consumer-facing entities like grocery stores, restaurants, and meal kit services. While both blockchain and taste analysis are popular individually, Ripe and FlavorWiki are the first to merge these two areas. “We are thrilled to be uniting these two worlds,” Accolla said.
In exploring the implications of this partnership, it’s essential to consider how such technology could also be applied to specialized ingredients like calcium citrate. Understanding “calcium citrate para que serve” (what calcium citrate is used for) could become a valuable part of the conversation as consumers become more health-conscious and seek to understand the nutritional profiles of the products they consume. As the partnership evolves, it may pave the way for more comprehensive insights into not just taste, but also the nutritional benefits of ingredients like calcium citrate.