Recipient Organization
WILDKALE.COM, INC.
211 N END AVE APT 9D
NEW YORK,NY 102821227
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The research partnership will evaluate the feasibility of connecting ripe.io's blockchain technology with Wildkale's marketplace technology while leveraging ripeCommunity's and the Center for Agricultural Development and Entrepreneurship's ("CADE") community engagement to create a "smart" farm-to-institution marketplace.The new technology's purpose is to increase the amount of school and other institutions' food purchases from small- and mid-sized local farmers. The feasibility study will be based on a survey of NYS schools, colleges, and farmers to understand the institutional procurement requirements such as purchase thresholds, RFP (Request For Proposal) processes, and farmer wholesale readiness, including liability insurance and certifications. We will also conduct a technology gap analysis to understand how to connect our existing technology tools to create a new technology that solves the farm-to-institution food procurement pain points. The proposed technology will match local farmers and school food buyers according to the institutions' definition of "local," automate procurement bidding and awarding of contracts, use blockchain to provide food quality and traceability information, and support awarded contracts' fulfillment payments. Because of their distributed nature, blockchains are excellent platforms for marketplaces and can facilitate a dynamic, data-driven marketplace with a live RFP mechanism to engage participants. The school buyers and farmers are matched by a shared, trusted need for data that can be combined and used to create smart contracts and notify the schools and farmers when matches in quality, timing, quantity, etc., are made, plus provide fulfillment and payment services.
Animal Health Component
30%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
30%
Developmental
20%
Goals / Objectives
Historically, the food supply chain has had disparate technology systems for capturing information across many different actors - farmers, aggregators, distributors, transportation companies, retailers, etc. A lack of transparency and data sharing across the supply chain makes it nearly impossible to track and trace the movement of food from origin to consumption. The challenge facing the agricultural industry is twofold: infrastructure must be developed to enable digital connectivity in agriculture, and where connectivity already exists, strong business cases must be made to adopt solutions. With the considerable buying power that institutions have, the institutional food purchasing market can enable implementing these new technology solutions at scale.Procuring local food in the public school and institutional system would benefit farmers, our economy and our children and thus increased local food procurement has been the growing focus of Federal, State, and local governments. However, a shared, and growing, obstacle for schools and other institutions across the United States is determining where and how to source local food. Even in locales with abundant local suppliers and eager institutions, connecting the two has been a consistent roadblock for both buyer and supplier. The Study of School Food Authority (SFA) Procurement Practices, the first study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Nutrition Service to comprehensively describe and assess the decision-making process regarding school food procurement practices at the SFA level found that there's "..a range of challenges to local procurement, with lack of availability of local producers cited by almost half the interviewed SFAs, followed by a higher cost for such foods."In addition, schools, colleges, and other institutions must abide by federal, state, local, and individual institutions' regulations. Further, many institutions who are making local and value- based purchases are unable to verify those purchases because of opaque supply chains and lack of information sharing.With a thriving farm community, and the largest school systems in the United States (New York City), New York State ("NYS") is a leader in the farm-to-institution movement. In fact, NYS has one of the most generous local food programs, whereby if schools spend 30 percent of their lunch dollars on in-state foods, the amount they are reimbursed for school lunches is quadrupled, from six to 25 cents. However, schools across New York state still face many obstacles in sourcing local food. These include understanding and following complex procurement rules and policies, identifying local producers that meet requirements, and building subsequent local supply chains that can aggregate and distribute those new products. Many small and medium sized farms also face challenges working with schools including understanding and meeting bid protocols and following other procurement requirements.We believe that by merging our innovative agricultural technologies, coupled with deep community involvement, we can solve this challenge. This research partnership will evaluate the feasibility of connecting ripe.io's blockchain technology and ripeCommunity's directory with Wildkale's marketplace technology.The partnership will leverage the Center for Agricultural Development and Entrepreneurship ("CADE") community engagement to develop a "smart" farm-to-institution marketplace, which will match local farmers and school buyers according to their shared needs and values, provide food quality and traceability information, and support the fulfillment of awarded contracts and payments. Because of their distributed nature, blockchains are excellent platforms for marketplaces and can facilitate a dynamic, data-driven marketplace with a live RFP (Request For Proposal) mechanism to engage participants. Here, the school buyers and farmers are matched by a shared, trusted need for data which then can be combined and used to create smart contracts and notify these account holders (schools and farmers) when matches in quality, timing, quantity, etc. are made, plus provide fulfillment and payment services.This research project will support the development plans for a smart farm-to-institution marketplace that is interoperable with traceability software.Objectives:1.Create a roadmap for technical compatibility and seamless functioning of platforms to support an e-marketplace accompanied with a distributed ledger system and registry system to handle supply chain data management.2.Analyze, validate and create a sustainable business model for operating this solution.3. Define budget, timeline and implementation plan.
Project Methods
Our research will answer the following technical questions:Will the proposed marketplace ease the procurement process for foodservice directors, thereby increasing the amount of locally sourced, farm-fresh produce in school/college cafeterias?How can distinct technology platforms communicate with each other to streamline processes for schools and institutions?Is a farmer-to-institution online distribution marketplace built on Wildkale's and ripe.io's blockchain technology a sustainable business model? How can we provide value for farmers, institutions, and monetize this new ripe.io, ripeCommunity and Wildkale.com technology?Can we accommodate a variety of institutions/schools and their buying criteria? This will include defining:a.Targeted distance from the school, i.e., schools can specify their definition of "local" by distance (50 miles, 100 miles, 150 miles, 200 miles, 250 miles, 300 miles, 400 miles) and state (selection of any US states).b.Relevant local, state, and federal requirements including the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Good Handling Practices (GHP) that school/college buyers need to abide by.c.How to list farmers, their product availability during different harvest seasons, pricing, and their delivery schedules and match these parameters with the needs of the school food kitchens.d.Minimum requirements for liability insurance and worker's compensation coverage, minimum working years' experience; option to require a performance bond upon the award.e.Micro-purchase and small-purchase threshold for each school depending on location, Federal and state defaults.When buying food, schools must use informal or formal processes as dictated by federal, state, and local regulations to protect competition and responsible use of taxpayer dollars. In New York, schools must go through the formal bidding process when making purchases over the Small Purchase Threshold. In formal bidding, schools prepare a time-intensive, sealed invitation for bids generally long before the school year begins, which is awarded to the least-cost, most responsive bidder. Currently, one of the only legal tools available to 'buy local' through the formal bidding process is a geographic preference bid, which gives extra points to a vendor that can supply local food, but schools must still award the contract to the least-cost vendor. Informal bids such as small or micro-purchases are more flexible. For purchases between the Small and Micro-purchase threshold, schools can make a small purchase whereby they are required to get three quotes, and must choose the least-cost, most responsive bidder. For purchases under the micro-purchase threshold schools can make direct micro-purchases from farmers on a one-off basis without soliciting multiple bids.Feasibility Study. The feasibility study will be led by the Consultant, CADE and assisted by the project managers from Wildkale.com (Ana Jakimovska) and ripe.io (Hannah Leighton). The study will include the following sections:Analyzing existing survey data from CADE's database to identify critical information and gaps that need to be addressed with the focus groups.Facilitating focus groups with farm-to-institution stakeholders including food hubs, aggregators, state departments of agriculture and education, and others. We are planning on 6-7 focus groups with about six to ten participants to be led through an open discussion by a CADE moderator (Kaitlyn Sirna) with assistance of Wildkale.com and ripe.io key project personnel. CADE will assist with: defining the focus groups, designing focus group questions, recruiting and preparing for participants (prepare the recruitment flyer/email, invitee tracking form), conducting the focus group (introductory remarks, consent form), and analyzing the data (data analysis format, synthesized report format). There are three distinct groups of stakeholders that we would like to interview:School focus group consisting of 10 NYS schools and/or colleges to understand their procurement requirements and pain points so that we can create online solicitation tools to ensure full and open competition, meet school purchase thresholds, liability and certification requirements, and execution of awarded contracts.Farm focus groups of about 15 small and mid-size farmers who work with or have an interest in working with schools to understand their specific needs from this platform, the capacity to work with schools and institutions, and infrastructure capabilities for working with the marketplace.Mid-chain focus groups of about 5 farm hubs and coops who already work with schools to understand their specific needs from this platform.Technology gap assessment and development plan (Wildkale, ripeCommunity and ripe.io).Project directors and software developers from each of the three organizations will work to:Design technology based on the above findings. The design will define the development of the product including functionality around Identifying farms that meet values, matchmaking, introducing payment, bid generating, tracking product, reporting, automatic reimbursement for institutions meeting requirements, and more.Define the desired state, describe which characteristics will remain independent, and which characteristics will be connected/shared.Describe the current state of each technology, purpose, and function.Once the technology gap assessment and development planare completed, we will bring back the same focus groups to evaluate the proposed platform.