Scantrust, a connected goods platform for companies that depend on selling physical products in a connected world, has developed an integration to the material traceability solution for SAP® Logistics Business Network giving food and beverage brand consumers the ability to track the end-to-end provenance of their food. This integration marks a critical milestone toward accelerating digitization in the food and beverage industry and is the continuation of efforts already started during the SAP.iO accelerator program last year.
Traceability Solutions: Transformation in the food industry
Over the last 10 years, large, global food producers have been steadily losing market share to smaller, local brands. The reason is largely explained by lost trust in the food industry. In 2015, a study by Mintel revealed that 43% of American millennials don’t trust large food manufacturers. 74% of them wish that food companies were more transparent. Similarly, an MIT Sloan study revealed that consumers might be willing to pay 2-10% more for products from brands providing more transparency.
This environment has food and beverage brands investing in technologies that trace their raw materials upstream and put more scrutiny on their suppliers. Brands need to communicate their upstream traceability efforts to consumers in an engaging way that restores trust and establishes loyalty.
Communicating food provenance via unique and secured QR codes
The material traceability option for SAP Logistics Business Network enables brands to collect and trace batch-level information on raw materials, ingredients and finished products. Among other benefits, brands can use this to instantly identify which products are affected by product recalls.
Thanks to integration with the Scantrust connected goods platform, this data can now also be linked to a unique Scantrust QR code which is printed on product packaging and made available directly to end consumers. When consumers use a smartphone to scan the codes, several useful features become available:
- Brands can deliver compelling stories around the provenance of their products. This is a fundamental step toward regaining consumer trust
- Every interaction with the QR codes generates valuable data & insights on consumer behavior which contributes to marketing efforts
- Via the unique QR code, a direct communication channel with consumers is made available including the chance to obtain product feedback, offer onboarding to a loyalty program, and more.
What’s next?
With the integration and the combined solution offering, Scantrust and SAP together accelerate digitization in the food chain. It’s expected that as more projects come online, the benefit of being able to connect directly to consumers will pay for itself, both as a win for brands and for consumers.
“Right from the start, we saw a great fit and complementarity between the material traceability option for SAP Logistics Business Network and the Scantrust connected goods platform”, says Nathan Anderson, CEO of Scantrust. “This integration is a great milestone that will unlock significant value for both, SAP’s and Scantrust’s customer base and enable us to deliver real value to the food industry and empower consumers.”
“Scantrust provides exactly the benefits that we were looking for as an extension to our platform to enable brands to communicate provenance data to their end-consumers”, says Eric Somitsch, Solution Owner of Farm-to-Consumer Traceability at SAP. “We are excited to be able to offer this integration to our customers and look forward to a great partnership to support our customers on getting additional value of their traceability implementations.”
If you are interested to learn more about the integration, please schedule a demo with our team at your convenience https://scantrust.com/request-a-demo
About Scantrust
Scantrust is a connected goods platform for companies that depend on selling physical products in a connected world. Scantrust enables active brand protection, supply chain awareness, and direct consumer engagement benefits by securely binding physical goods with online identities. Scantrust solutions help maintain brand integrity, deliver valuable consumer insights, and unlock growth potential in the goods companies sell.
About SAP.iO
SAP.iO is SAP’s strategic business unit to accelerate innovation and drive new business models for SAP. The SAP.iO Fund makes investments in early-stage startups building innovative solutions that enable customers to receive highly incremental value from SAP platforms and applications. The SAP.iO Foundries are a global network of equity-free accelerator programs in strategic startup hubs providing startups access to mentorship, exposure to SAP technologies, and opportunities to meet and collaborate with SAP customers. Learn more at https://SAP.iO/.