Our Technology
Connecting fishers and farmers with restaurants to fight food fraud.
Food supply chains are still largely a 'black box', with no visibility of what happens within. They typically operate on paper-based records, which creates interdependencies between intermediaries and ample opportunities to falsify records.
Two Hands instead creates a transparent, independently-authenticated supply chain. We do this through the use of
• blockchain (providing a cryptographically secure, immutable record of transactions),
• smart tags (allowing for unique, customised information to be attached to each product), and
• trace and trace technology (bringing greater efficiency, transparency and traceability between all supply chain actors).
Our reengineered supply chain, combined with 'humanising' technology, establishes a direct connection between producers and restaurants and their patrons, where trust and transparency are key.
Existing supply chains are opaque, middlemen pocket up to 60% of earnings.
Two Hands has re-engineered the supply chain from the ground up to put people at the centre. Transparency is key. What you do on Two Hands today, will affect who wants to do business with you tomorrow. Trust is confident vulnerability. Two Hands fosters trust by enabling everyone to see, who does what they say they will.
When buying from a local fish market it is impossible to know:
How many wholesale facilities did it pass through?
What temperature was the lobster stored at each facility?
What was the quality of the water in each facility?
How many times has the animal been handled?
Where was it caught?
Was the animal miss treated?
How long ago was the animal caught?
“Food fraud represents a USD 40 billion problem worldwide and is allegedly worth
more than the heroin trade and firearms trafficking combined”
- Dr Sylvain Charlebois, Professor in Food Distribution and Policy, Dalhousie University, Canada
Instead of “trust, but verify”, blockchain enables us to “verify, then trust”. A centralised system is susceptible to abuse. If a business can pay to remove content that is bad for business, how can the system be trusted? How can they be transparent when their supply chain operate in data silos? In a decentralised system there is no one to pay. Everyone can see if your deliveries are late, or you don’t pay your bills on time or you sell low quality product.
In the Two Hands model, a last mile distributor operating a node in China has access to every transaction. The distributor can assure their customers of the data integrity with confidence. The distributor has a record of every transaction in their supply chain.
Immutable changes to a tag's data are visible to everyone in the network. The transactions are immutable and require consensus to be added into the ledger. The shared data view makes the supply chain more transparent. Transparency acts as a trust anchor for collaboration between people across continents.
“It means that we will be able to get our product into China in the most pristine condition ever and the Chinese people will be able to experience perfect Southern Rock Lobster, just as they are when we take them out of the water.”
Fishers Colin and Kae Milstead
(Robe, South Australia)
Blockchain technology is at the heart of the Two Hands application ecosystem. Our smart tagging and bespoke technologies utilize blockchain to provide the transparency, traceability and provenance at each step of the supply chain.
The Two Hands technology solution has been implemented using GoTrace, the world’s first turnkey SaaS solution for the recording, tracking, and tracing of physical items. GoTrace provides real-time auditability and recording of transactions on the GoChain public blockchain ledger. GoChain uses Proof of Reputation to enable the fastest, most sustainable, web3 compatible blockchain. GoChain is a fork of Ethereum, and so provides 100% compatibility with the extensive tools and smart contracts developed for Ethereum.
Two Hands ecosystem includes technology that passively or directly captures information related to performance by its actors. This varies for each supply chain participant. Information captured allows performance benchmarks to be established based on outcomes that are desirable to the Two Hands ecosystem (i.e., quality product, efficiency in handling, consumer satisfaction, Environmental, Social and Governance footprint (ESG)). This reputational system provides end consumers and other potential supply chain participants with information about:
• The credibility of the Two Hands marketplace
• The credibility of participants in the Two Hands marketplace
• Whether they wish to join the Two Hand smarketplace
Two Hands technology provides the framework that supports ethical behaviour and collaborative supply chains.
"Traditional supply chains are full of middlemen. Food fraud is a problem because there is no transparency into who did what. Unlike other blockchain projects that bolt into existing processes, Two Hands has re-engineered the supply chain from the ground up to put people at the centre. What you do on Two Hands today, will affect who wants to do business with you tomorrow."
Each individual product has a unique, tamper evident Smart Tag which is used like a passport. Chefs ordering through the Two Hands marketplace, select from live inventory based on region, harvester or price. On purchase a travel itinerary for the product is created. When the product travels through the supply chain it’s itinerary is validated by our logistics partners with each event uploaded to the blockchain.
Chefs and diners can verify the authenticity of their product using the Two Hands consumer app. Scanning the Smart Tag allows the travel itinerary and provenance, secured by block chain authentication, to be verified.
Each smart tag is unique with a life cycle that mirrors the items travel itinerary. If a fraudulent tag appears in the supply chain it is flagged to the Two Hands team for investigation. Similarly, smart tags that are expired (i.e., travel itinerary has been completed) are clearly identified by our consumer app to provide full transparency to chefs and consumers of the validity of the Smart Tag. The meta data captured from interaction with the smart tags allows Two Hands to passively collect data about each.
The Two Hands marketplace seeks to become a complete ecosystem for fishers and farmers, restaurants and logistics partners. It will both provide a supply chain with trust and transparency, and meet their wider operational needs, becoming indispensable to our users.
“Because I know where the lobster comes from, I know it is being cared for. I am cutting out the middleman and it is coming direct to me. It is out of the ocean and two days later it’s here, it’s alive. I know his natural environment and that it is chemical free, it has not been touched by anybody else. What I am getting is a true authentic product”
Chef Alistair Carter
Waldorf Astoria on the Bund Executive
“Two Hands is about leveraging the power of technology to build intelligence into supply chains it is the realization that technology alone is not enough. Acknowledging that people are the fabric of the supply chain is the imperative. This means the producers/farmers/fishermen and the ultimate end consumers. Building a technology experience that enriches all participants is at the core of what Two Hands is about. We often refer to what we are doing as 'Building the Marketplace of the Future' - putting people at the centre.” - Two Hands Director, Wayne Hayes
Our consumer research has shown that experiential, uniqueness, freshness, and premium quality are key to a luxury dining experience.
With our QR code that accompanies each product, diners can scan the code and are given a customised experience to include the story of the producer, the region, sustainability credentials and the verified product journey.
This acts as a branding channel for the restaurant to deepen the relationship with the diner, as well as for the producer to get the recognition he/she deserves.
