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Alibaba to use blockchain to fight China’s fake food

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Steven Millward
6:07 AM at Mar 24, 2017 3 min read

3.4k    

A fake egg found on sale in China in 2012. Photo credit: China Daily.

China has a fake food problem. Counterfeit soy sauce, rice, and eggs are among the potentially deadly items found for sale. Now
Alibaba, the nation’s top online shopping company, wants to fight back against fake foods by using blockchain, the tech behind
Bitcoin.

Jack Ma’s US$270 billion ecommerce firm today announced it’s going to begin experimenting with blockchain, a digital ledger
system that’s a sort of giant global spreadsheet, to track genuine food products through the supply chain. The idea is that the
vendors on Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall, marketplaces with a collective 443 million active shoppers, will be able to verify the
authenticity of the item using this system, thereby squeezing out the dangerous fakes.

The blockchain system will be piloted in Australia and New Zealand, two popular sources of food products for Alibaba’s Chinese
customers.
Alibaba founder and chairman Jack Ma enjoys a non-fake and apparently tasty apple. Photo credit: Alibaba.

Alibaba did not detail how its shoppers will be able to verify the authenticity of the foodstuffs.

Beefing with counterfeiters

“Given Australia and New Zealand’s exemplary regulatory environments, along with being home to some of the world’s most
successful food and beverage exporters, it was a natural decision to pilot the program here,” said Maggie Zhou, managing director
of Alibaba’s Australia and New Zealand wing. “We see the Australian and New Zealand markets setting the tone for the rest of the
world when it comes to integrity, safety, and quality of food supply chains.”

No start date was given for the program, which sees Alibaba joining forces with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Blackmores, and
Australia Post.
An Australian farm. Photo credit: noxnorthy / 123RF.

Alibaba has been repeatedly criticized over the years for struggling to eliminate fake items – from bootleg DVDs to knock-off
designer handbags – sold by its third-party vendors. Ma, China’s second richest tech boss, this month called for China to toughen
the laws and penalties against counterfeiting. “Because counterfeiting is such a low-risk crime, it’s hard to imagine how we can
effectively rid society of counterfeit goods,” he wrote on social media. “We need to fight counterfeits the same way we fight drunk
driving. For example, if the penalty for even one fake product manufactured or sold was a seven-day prison sentence, the world
would look very different, both in terms of intellectual property enforcement and food and drug safety, as well as our ability to
foster innovation.”

The blockchain system is increasingly being used in a number of other fraud detection areas by an array of tech companies and
financial institutions.

See: Blockchain meets fashion in bid to fight the fakes

In the case of food, the blockchain could, for example, store a cow’s DNA data alongside a package of Australian steak, creating
what Bitcoin Magazine in an article headlined Burgers on the Blockchain describes as a “digital marker [that] can then be cross-
checked with the blockchain record to ensure the product’s authenticity throughout its lifecycle.”

“Once the food lands on a retailer’s shelf, consumers can scan a QR code on the food package with their mobile phones to receive
food safety information about the product, including details as to what is in the package and its origination,” the author explains.

That’s the theory. Alibaba’s blockchain experiment is the first step.

Editing by Judith Balea

(And yes, we’re serious about ethics and transparency. More information here.)
Filed under: Ecommerce, Featured Stories, News

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1 COMMENT Sort by Newest 

Duy Nguyen Mar 27, 2017

Kudos for this experiment

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Indonesia’s Qlapa scores series A to scale handicrafts marketplace

 5 Comments

Judith Balea
10:31 AM at Mar 23, 2017 2 min read

364    

Photo credit: Qlapa.

Indonesian marketplace for handmade products Qlapa today announced it has closed its series A round, led by Aavishkaar
Frontier Funds, an impact investor from India. Founders of existing backer Kapan Lagi Networks also put in a “minor” investment.
The sum was undisclosed.

“In our seed round, we were trying to achieve product-market fit and get initial traction in the local market. In the past one and
half year, numbers have supported our thesis in the market potential,” said founder Benny Fajarai.

Benny built Qlapa in 2015, seeing a US$20 billion opportunity in the handicrafts market.

Today Qlapa is competing with other startups, including KU KA and Craftline.

But Benny said Qlapa’s value lies in the strict curation standards it imposes on sellers, which guarantee the uniqueness of items
on the site, as well as its rule against reselling. “By cutting down the distribution chain, buyers can get the best price before any
major markups by resellers.”

He said Qlapa has over 4,000 curated crafters, selling 65,000 handmade items on the platform. Fashion items like batik clothes
and home decor products are its best sellers. The site takes a 10 percent commission from each successful sale, a small number
considering the margins made by sellers, said Benny.

With the new funds, the startup will double its team from 35 and scale its operations nationwide.

ABOUT QLAPA

LOCATION Indonesia

FOUNDED April 2015

WEBSITE qlapa.com

HIRING 8 positions

LATEST FUNDING Series A

Qlapa is an online marketplace for local handmade products in Indonesia.

View full profile in our Database.

Editing by Neha Margosa

(And yes, we’re serious about ethics and transparency. More information here.)

Filed under: Ecommerce, Investments, News, Startups

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5 COMMENTS Sort by Newest 

Susan Leonmarth Litaay Mar 26, 2017

Handmade products are generally designed with great care and consideration, so that each of the final design obtained from a handmade
product is usually different and special to each other. In addition, production is also using the best materials so that the quality and
durability can be guaranteed. Finally, each product is made one by one by the hand of the craftsman who is an expert and experienced
precisely and carefully. Indeed, compared with ordinary products, handmade products are produced only in very limited quantities. But it
was done in order to achieve the best product quality, both in terms of design and the final result.The uniqueness and quality, it is seeded
from qlapa

I’m Indonesia and proud to be part of Indonesian’s qlapa

1 Reply 

Andrea Lim Mar 23, 2017

How does the founder calculate $20 billion market size ? That’s really huge opportunity
 2 Reply 

Sandeep Das Mar 24, 2017

Usually they just estimate it top down using TAM, SAM, SOM : https://www.thebusinessplansho…

3 Reply 
Md Hadi Shafie Mar 23, 2017
Congrats Benny

0 Reply 

Marthin Pasaribu Mar 23, 2017

Nice and Good Luck Qlapa

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