CVA Podcast: Michael Chrisment, Farmer Connect

Transcript

[Music] hello hello this is your host trash ahmed ready to kick off another bite size episode of the crypto valley association podcast a special thank you to seba bank for supporting this initiative as they pursue their mission to redefine finance for the new economy now let's discover together the growing trends of this fast-moving space and try to shed some light on the mysteries it contains today we are joined by michael chrisman chief executive officer of pharma connect whose vision is to humanize consumption through technology by helping farmers to connect to the world around them so without further ado let's dive straight in and uncover how

blockchain can support supply chains hello michael how are you doing today hello hello i'm really good thank you thanks for having me i'm really excited about our conversation of course it's it's my pleasure and how about we start off today by hearing about how you first got involved within this blockchain world yeah thanks for the question i i think as far as i can relate to technology i would say is when i was six and when i got my first computer so instead of answering questions straight on blockchain i'll talk about i'll talk about technology because i'm really uh i'm really passionate about tech uh some people might call me eat um so i've been observing in in the past uh now if i go back to six years old about 35 years but technology has

brought to this world and it's been it's been an acceleration it's been an amazing journey and if you look at every single disruption that has happened it's really overwhelming so when we got to the point where you know we we got the internet we got all sorts of other ways after that when looking at blockchain you know it's uh as far as i look at it as okay what is what is that thing and what is crypto and crypto is it cryptic you know uh would i go somewhere but then when i write and when i got really interested in is um is in my time in media when i was in the media outlet when specifically close to the young generation and uh and i was observing teens and i was

observing the way they were using and they were looking at those technology and it seemed this way like you know and they would think that this is the way to go forward and then when i applied it to my experience and when i applied it to the world of food then i felt like wow there's so many ways on leveraging technology and first and foremost connectivity and connections between people and all those nods and all those connections which is you know very close to what human beings are and being social animals needs to be organized in a digital world so this is where i i started to feel like okay this is something big this is this is really your changing paradigm and that's going to enable so many great usage and uh i'm so glad that after thinking about that

then uh then the opportunity at powerconnect came which i think is a combination that a lot of uh thing that i've just said in a lot of things that i've that i've been doing so i got really excited about that incredible that's a tech technologist at at heart it's it's it's lovely lovely to see and and i mean please tell us more about pharma connect and potentially also about the values driving uh you and the company forward as well yeah uh let me start with the question uh so i shouldn't be the one asking questions but i'm asking you a question did you have did you have a coffee today uh i did just i just had an espresso do you know where it's coming from uh

unfortunately not no okay well here we go so you know this is what farmer connect does is trying to put you know details and and and transparency behind the products that you consume on a daily basis so and we we do that by providing the software that enable uh transparency behind the journey of each product and not only the journey but also you know the people behind and how it's been produced in what way and with what impacts so we provide the software that enable that all the way from the very beginning with farmers with farm producers um across the entire supply center each

and every single players of the supply chain all the way to the consumer and and that's that's that's the core word from pharma connect does and and you know to go back to what you you asked me in the intro i got really excited by that because you know when you ask that question when you start to have answers to them to the question you you automatically you know get more involved and more interested and and basically get closer uh to the product and to all the people behind it so when you are a marketer like me so i'm not only a technologist but i'm also marketers and a bit of a geeky brandy uh guy you see all opportunities coming in for you know short-term gains

efficiencies or things like that but also for longer gains like when value or preference or loyalty so you see all sorts of things because then your closer relationship brings a lot of additional value so farmer connect does that we we provide the the software that that enables that to to happen we started in coffee we continued in cocoa and that's for the moment the two commodities were where we are currently uh involved in through different products but maybe we can we can elaborate also on the on the details behind that yeah oh definitely wow that's uh that's that's wonderful i'll definitely pay attention to where my coffee is coming from uh and next time i i have a cup uh and okay

wonderful and i just want to take take on one of your taglines you know a new horizon for farmers consumers and everyone in between let me just take some time to talk about everyone in between i mean i mean who who is really in between uh all of this well there are a lot of businesses i mean um obviously you know you start with with farmer um and and when you said farmers you could be it could be already a family so agriculture is the biggest vertical in the world it's touching one billion people lives and so that's already a big group of people but when you move then further you get farmers getting together you get groups of farmers getting together and

it then you get people moving stuff then you get people packing transforming shipping from one place to another place transporters exporters importers people who are transforming people who are doing packaging people who are doing distribution people were doing retail uh people who are selling brands i mean all of those people are involved in the supply chain so you know cooperative export is important to strategism and you you name it there's so many people involved and this is why you know you understand that so much value is added at every step of the way and added or eaten you know depends on

the way you you look at things and uh and then gather and need to share uh a lot of information and that has to to be organized and it's very and it's still very very very analog and if it's starting to be digital it's digital it's ancient digital i call it excel spreadsheets emails even facts you know so there's many ways of improving improving the sharing of information about how products are are passed to one another so this is why this is really a new rise because you know i was talking to the ceo recently

and and quoting him he he was telling me you know how much sustainability is high in the agenda as of today unfortunately as of today but it's now really central in the agenda of most ceos and there's no way around it when we see the world you know it's really emergency and and he was telling me that there's no sustainability success or impact without digital you can't do it without digital because you you you need the data you need the transparency you need the action and you need velocity you need to go fast right so if you don't have the data in a digital form then then you can't you can't change uh

you can't really change you can't embrace you know it takes video village to to make those things uh change so digital is really cool to that and all the technologies that could that the show can enable is really part of that transformation so that's why it's really a new horizon because everyone can can benefit from that and it's really the point of saying everyone should benefit from that because if there's no incentive to everyone within the supply chain then things won't change and this was this was one of the key observations of our founder uh before before starting pharmacies it has to be done together within an ecosystem as a group okay now i i i definitely see and we'll

touch more upon the kind of the part of the each step of the way a heart is eaten uh eaton i think that's a very very interesting uh one to dive in and you mentioned a lot about digital right i mean you need to do this in a digital way and you have two applications now we'll touch on both maybe the first one being the the farmer id app um can you can you talk to us about the importance of allowing farmers to get a proof of identity i mean what does that mean and and what does it actually entail uh from that yeah i think there's a risk in digitalizing the entire supply chain when it comes to to the origin levels that we might impose a sullivan neocolonism

to the origin market and to the farmer specifically so we might agitate in front of them the benefits of sharing their data but not allowing them to own the data and not allowing them to manage how their data is shared so it's very important it is a responsibility to really enable farmers to first create and share the the data related to their produce and and own it and i really mean own it because if we're building value and creating additional value because this is what we're doing when we gather data we're creating tangible additional value there must be

something for the farmers it has to be has to be otherwise it's you know it's it's rating them even more than what could have happened in the in the past decades and so we need to show this and to be responsible to provide this as an incentive for them to invest time knowledge into sharing the data in a structured way so we need to do that together and define the real standards so that the data that is gathered is is useful to the entire chain but also to them in a very responsible way so it's it's um it's it's really key it's really key because there's no way

farmers can monetize the data because technically they will start and they're started already but they will start at scale to sell not only the their produce but they're produced trust data i see so so i think it's very very important and this is where maybe less less about blockchain because what we're what we're talking about here is another technology which will which we're using called ssis itself submarine identity which enable to create those profiles to verify those profiles to attach to those profiles digital credentials to allocate and to allow farmers to to manage and to

manage where this data will then travel and to whom and how and and that's really the start and uh and i think ssi is is a very promising technology again that we're we're using it's your early days but it's very very promising okay that's wonderful to to here and um i want to touch upon that a little bit further i mean i know that you're ex nestle and how how do you how do you believe like your old employer and how the larger organizations feel about the kind of imp further empowering the farmers i mean potentially if the farmers are getting more these larger corporations that are currently controlling a lot of uh a lot

of this industry they're going to be getting less i mean how do they feel about this kind of the trend towards what you've just uh mentioned i don't think it's less i think it's more um you know everyone will get to know more and we'll we'll get to show more so that's why i'm really optimistic about finding an incentive for everyone across the board um it's really it's really more uh and and knowledge is creating that value so i'm not i'm not really concerned about that uh and and i do think also there's a lot of risk and is not moving on because you know some of the communities are really endangered so when you look at coffee in particular i mean coffee the demand for

coffee is absolutely exploding so when you look at the 2050 horizon that the demand for coffee is multiplied by multiplied by three so it's tripling um so it's really exploding so when you are one of those you know companies and brands you you're excited about what's what's what's around you right because the demand is is exploding so obviously you get a very bright outlook from a business standpoint but if the supply is not following the demand then you have an issue you have a very big issue so when you're asking yourselves what are the current incentives for producers to continue and to actually continue and produce more it's quite limited would

you would you as a as a coffee farmer recommend your children to continue to produce that's when you look at you know what has happened in the past decades and how it's difficult to to leave out of out of your work so yes that's so that's why i think those uh everyone within the industry is is very incentivized to uh to change to evolve to have better shared value to create additional shared value for all because because otherwise there's there's a limit to the future you know you're not going to get enough supply for you for your demands it's going to be a huge problem thank you thank you for sharing that

that side of things and maybe you move on to your your second application called thank my farmer where these producers can can share their story which is truly incredible how relevant is this to to the business as a whole and do you have any interesting stories maybe to share with us from yeah from this app yeah i think i'll get many stories to share but you know i i think in terms of business which might me uh might be the focus of our conversation today probably one key example is one of our clients recently uh seeing that the interaction with their consumers on on the website related to the product which we are tracing was moving from about 20 seconds to about

two minutes and a half wow so so if you're just thinking about what sort of impact anyone can have and i'm saying anyone is like anyone it's like you talking to someone in the street or trying to get your i don't know your father to lend you some money for a trip what differences make from you having 20 minutes to pitch uh 20 seconds to pitch or two half minutes that's you know for me it's just like time it's time is value just to be able to enter a conversation for for a longer period of time or meaningful content meaningful topics

because then you're talking about the origin of the product the people behind it the way it's crafted you're fully transparent about how it travels when and where and how and then you link this to the opportunity to contribute because like thank my farmer is also a way to crowdfund money towards sustainability project at the origin so you're entering a totally different relationship than just you know you're watching the movie on tv and then you're disrupted by it by by 30 second ad right so you're really in a totally different mode of communication so i think this is okay

this is this is the key benefit of from a business endpoint again you know there are there are many other things we can talk about from a business standpoint it's really that relationship building that leads as everybody knows beyond awareness to consideration to repeat purchase to more loyalty and you know you just have more trust and uh and you care more and you're closer and you buy more so that's your preference is is increased and your loyalty to that specific product or brand is increased yeah well i see great and and although we're cutting it rather short i mean tell us about the impact of blockchain uh blockchain

technology within all of this i mean blockchain for us has been instrumental to develop trust in the ecosystem we're building so you know as i said in the beginning we our founder really was was visionary and thinking that the solution that he needed for himself as a start within his own company because the former connect was built out of an industry need and a specific player within the industry sukafina who's uh who's a coffee trader he he was visioning pitching the idea that it was not only good to solve the issue for himself but really to make an industry wise and that would be even more beneficial than just developing an i.t

tool for one player within the industry so i think what blockchain has been instrumental is is to organize trust within that ecosystem of different places because if there's no trust you can't get people to work together specifically when they are competitors because we do host not only different players who have you know common interests and sometimes conflicting interests so we do host also competitors for for every type of players we have on the platform and it and it works okay wow intriguing i mean yeah trust is at the the core of a lot of these technologies and i'm very intrigued to

hear your opinions on where you believe the space the blockchain one and also let's say the innovative technology space is going to grow i guess with keeping trust in mind as we become further digitized i mean please yeah sure please share us with us your thoughts where do you think we're headed five ten years down the line so i would be really cautious about being a future just because there's only one thing that you can be sure of is that you'll be wrong um but but but anyway what really matters to me when i look at the rising technology or other technology is everything that can help uh in two dimensions the first dimension is remove friction and

increase speed uh speed of action so so anything that goes with with that making it making it easier making it faster is very very very interesting to to us and anything that enables automation so so i would say those two areas and when you think about those two areas then everything that goes with you know smart contracting everything that goes with ai with machine learning is where we're looking at because that brings that brings the benefits i just listed because as soon as you've you know put quite some energy because it's true huh when you start this type of journey

you need you need to change you need to transform so so it takes some time but as soon as you've done that work anything that can help and make it easier making faster automating things is where you really will where you you constantly showcase additional benefits and that would sustain the effort and grow and scale it so that's the focus there wonderful well thank you thank you so much for sharing with us today michael and before we close up and unfortunately do you have any final words for our listeners today yeah i would just uh i would just jump on on on the recent news that we had during the course of summer

and being joining the ungc so united nations global compact uh movement so pharmacy is really proud to contribute to to that i think it's it concerns our commitment as a company beyond everything that we do at a technology standpoint to to make a difference to to have an impact so obviously we're a business for for profit but also a business for profit for good we want to have an impact we want to be held accountable for our impact and being measured and i'm not saying this although only to focus on farmer connect but to encourage also everyone to look at their own business and to see what sorts of measurable tactics they could make to to the un sdg targets because i think we we should all make a

difference and that should be a focus for everyone wonderful great well well thank you thank you michael and if you enjoyed this conversation feel free to check out more on our website crypto valley.swiss where we host plenty of events educational material and even provide information on how you can join our growing community so michael i really appreciate you joining us today thank you thank you once again thank you so much pleasure stay tuned stay safe and until next time in the crypto valley in switzerland bye [Music] oh