Protect Made in Italy, reduce waste and the environmental impact of food products, provide the consumer with all the information they need, from field to table. These are just a few of the multitude of applications that blockchain, the hi-tech information chain can have in numerous productive sectors, in particular the agri-food chain.

These were the themes of the first Onlife edition of Data Valley — Wine for Thought, the exclusive event of yesterday, April 20 organized by Crclex and Blum in collaboration with Infocert, IBM, and San Marco Informatica. More than 60 participants including entrepreneurs and professionals to discuss innovation. To make people understand the advantages of blockchain were IBM and Gruppo Grigi, historic leader in the livestock and food sector, who has joined the IBM Food Trust project to enhance Aliveris pasta, obtained from organic and 100% Italian wheat. To represent the territorial reality, the testimony of EZ Lab, creator of first digital platform which uses Blockchain and Smart Contracts to track and certify agri-food products.

Malosio: 'Countless blockchain applications'

“Blockchain technology brings with it a series of values - he explains Fabio Malosio, IBM blockchain solution leader -. The transactions become visible to all actors, so they are transparent. Since the blocks are linked backwards, by rereading the blockchain backwards I can reconstruct the history of any asset I represented, I can always establish the origin. For the same reason, since no block can be modified, I have a concept of immutability: if I go to change one of my blocks, I lose the concatenation with the subsequent blocks, losing all the acquired values. All these concepts are very useful when applied to the food supply chain: Food safety, waste reduction and environmental sustainability are just some of the new advantages and new features that I can experience with the blockchain application.”

Grigi: 'Every pack of pasta will be unique'

“We decided to choose blockchain because we needed to communicate with the final consumer,” he points out. Daniele Grigi, CEO of Gray Food — Food Italiane -. A consumer who, fortunately or unfortunately, runs at a very fast pace. Our problem is that, having arrived last, we had a lot of data, but we didn't know how to make them available to the customer: we knew exactly what hectare sown, with which seed, who had sown, when it had been collected, how it had been stored, when it had been packaged and so on. So two years ago our collaboration with IBM started, we started with our globally certified pasta, which will be launched certified blockchain, with the entire supply chain. Each pack of pasta will be unique, and the consumer will be able to see all the information.”

Morbiato: “Blockchain to defend Made in Italy”

“Today, in the digital world, trust is the new currency - he says Massimo Morbiato, CEO and founder of EZ Lab -. Why apply blockchain? Two out of three Italian products abroad are counterfeit, and they cause enormous damage. We, for example, trace Asiago cheese, which goes a lot to California. What is consumed there, however, is often not produced in Asiago, but by Italian dairies and not scattered around the United States or Canada. At this point, the taste of consumers — used to counterfeit Asiago — has changed, and entire generations will prefer it to real Vicenza cheese. With blockchain, therefore, you can acquire a lot of information, and use it to enhance the product.”

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