H2020 Project STOPTHEFRAUDINOLIVEO: Fighting olive oil counterfeiting with blockchain: a working product has arrived
- Type Project
- Status Filled
- Execution 2019 -2019
- Assigned Budget 50.000,00 €
- Scope Europeo
- Main source of financing H2020
- Project website STOPTHEFRAUDINOLIVEO
Your extra virgin olive oil could be counterfeit. It could have been diluted with low-quality oil and chemically refined, or with oil that will be spoiled by the time it reaches the consumer. The counterfeit olive oil business in the European Union has grown rapidly, and inspections and fines cannot solve the problem.
The EU-funded STOPTHEFRAUDINOLIVEO project is developing a blockchain-based product that acts as a digital seal, allowing consumers to easily detect counterfeit bottles using their smartphones. The project will reach out to olive oil producers and associations in Europe to introduce them to the Digital Olive Oil Seals and explain how they can combat fraudsters.
Legal and serious European producers of genuine olive oil are fighting fraud committed by European and non-European counterfeiters. The solutions don't work well enough: either they don't work, or they require large investments from small businesses, or they try, unsuccessfully, to please unwilling distributors (more on this later). Fines and inspections don't work. And consumers remain unprotected, both at the European and non-European levels. It's time to do something different and radical.
On the following pages you will see:
- A functional, high-tech blockchain-based product that acts as a (digital) stamp, eliminating the counterfeiter economy. Please take a look! https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6489484643006509056
- A product that puts in the hands of customers, via their smartphones, without apps or cryptocurrencies, a definitive tool to differentiate between genuine and counterfeit oil. What's more, once a bottle is identified as fake, the entire batch of counterfeit bottles is marked as "fake." It's a kind of "vaccination."
- A product that already has an early adopter, a producer of olive oil from ancient trees in Catalonia, Spain (https://www.filosofiagourmet.com/es/).
- A company that is in talks with a broader group of Andalusian olive oil producers interested in the product for export to Poland, the United Kingdom, and other countries.
- A company that has contracts to issue over 100,000 blockchain certificates in other fields (Education, Healthcare, and ID cards) using similar blockchain technology isn't experimental for us! It's our business. And we want to make Digital Olive Oil Seals a big deal for Europe. Now we need to fine-tune the product and explore and expand markets. We plan to approach olive oil producers and associations in Europe to showcase our solutions, customize them, and make them widely accepted.
Stopping Olive Oil Fraud with Blockchain Fraudulent olive oil is a serious problem in the European Union and around the world. New digital seals could contribute to the fight against counterfeiting. Europe is a powerhouse in the world of olive oil, home to many of the world's most recognized quality brands. Europe produces olive oil worth around €3 billion annually, primarily in Spain, Italy, and Greece. While olive oil may not seem like a likely candidate for fraud, counterfeiting is a significant and growing problem across the European Union.
Market losses in Europe due to olive oil fraud are estimated at around €1.5 billion per year. In addition to the economic consequences, the consequences for human health can be enormous: in Spain, in 1981, a case of fraudulent olive oil affected more than 20,000 people and caused hundreds of deaths from a toxic syndrome. "There are different ways to counterfeit: you can simply invent a brand, pour something into the bottle, and label it however you want," explains Enrique Lizaso, technical director of BlockTac and coordinator of the STOPTHEFRAUDINOLIVEO project. Oils can be diluted with low-quality, chemically refined oils, or with oils that will already be rotten by the time consumers open the bottle and start adding it to their salads.
Most customers don't realize their oil is fake, even after tasting it. There are olive oil inspectors, but they aren't enough to check every bottle. Furthermore, fines aren't enough to prevent fraud. The STOPTHEFRAUDINOLIVEO project has developed a smart technological solution to this problem. BlockTac is a new type of digital seal, based on blockchain technology, that allows customers to verify the authenticity of oil simply with their smartphone in the supermarket. Signed, sealed, delivered. "From the beginning, we decided that the system had to be extremely easy to use: the customer just had to point their smartphone at the product's QR code and immediately know if that bottle was authentic," explains Lizaso.
Each unit has a double-layer label. The customer removes one layer to reveal a QR code. Any smartphone (iOS or Android) can scan the code, and an app checks whether the bottle is registered on the blockchain. If it's legal, it's marked as opened. If it's already been checked, the customer is notified. "If the blockchain record doesn't contain the QR code, the bottle appears as 'no information, caution, no information, consume at your own risk!'" Lizaso explains. When a counterfeiter copies a product, it often involves manufacturing many more than one additional unit. This means manufacturing hundreds or thousands of bottles.
In this case, the fraudster can copy the QR code, and each of the counterfeit bottles will share the same code. As soon as one of these is opened through BlockTac, all the others are marked as open or potentially counterfeit. The customer can then decide how to proceed. The project currently has agreements for 3.5 million units, and the goal for 2020 is to reach 10 million products, making it the largest use of blockchain to date, after cryptocurrencies. "We are deeply grateful to the EU for giving us this opportunity," Lizaso concludes.
- HASHED BLOCKTAC SL (BLOCKTAC)
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