Open Food Chain presentó ante la comunidad de Cardano su visión para llevar trazabilidad, pruebas verificables y datos inmutables a la industria alimentaria, un sector de USD $11 billones que enfrenta una creciente crisis de confianza, mayores exigencias regulatorias y una digitalización todavía rezagada.
The global food industry could become one of the next major use cases for Cardano. That was the central thesis presented by Mika Dewilt, founder of Open Food Chain, during the seminar Cardano Seminar: The Potential of Web3 in The Food Industry, with Open Food Chain, organized by the Cardano Community.
In her presentation, Dewilt argued that the food sector faces a trust crisis, increasing regulatory demands, and a serious lag in digitalization. In this context, she suggested that blockchain infrastructure, or Web3 as she prefers to call it when speaking to companies in the sector, can provide a new class of asset: the verifiable proof.
According to her explanation, this proof consists of immutable, validated data that can support claims about origin, sustainability, or production conditions. In her view, this type of information is valuable for companies as well as for consumers, auditors, health authorities, and regulators.
The founder also noted that the food industry moves approximately USD $11 trillion globally. Therefore, she believes the opportunity for Cardano and its ecosystem goes far beyond an experimental niche and could open a mass market for traceability and digital trust solutions.
Trust crisis and regulatory pressure
Dewilt stated that less than half of consumers in Europe trust the food industry, and she added that the situation in the United States, Asia, and other regions is very similar. In her reading, humanity is losing trust in food for specific and cumulative reasons.
Among these reasons, she highlighted three major problems:
- Ambiguity in labeling – Many packaging labels are hard to interpret, leaving unclear what is actually promised and how credible that promise is.
- Increase in supply chain incidents – This includes food contamination cases, outbreaks linked to dairy and infant products, and other failures that can directly affect consumers’ health.
- Rising food fraud – Dewilt noted that the system has become extremely complex, with very long supply chains, multiple intermediaries, and low visibility into each stage. Added to this is growing attention to the effects of ultra-processed foods and the difficulty of understanding exactly what is being purchased.
She also emphasized that governments are already responding. She cited new regulations in the European Union, United States, China, and other regions that limit vague claims and push companies to provide evidence supporting what they state on packaging.
She mentioned regulations such as the EUDR and the European green claims directive, which require better data infrastructure. For Open Food Chain, this change makes traceability and proof of claims an operational necessity, not just an added value.
Why Web3 could fit in food
Dewilt avoids using the term “blockchain” too much when speaking to food companies, because it is still associated with crypto and something many prefer to avoid. Instead, she talks about Web3 as a more accessible way to present the technology.
Even so, she made it clear that what interests her about blockchain are three attributes:
- Decentralization – Essential in an industry with many actors and where more than half of the world’s food comes from small producers. A small producer could be a farm of less than an acre. This fragmentation, combined with the global complexity of food chains, makes it hard to rely on a single centralized data system. She therefore advocates a distributed infrastructure for sharing and verifying information.
- Immutability – In Dewilt’s view, if there is any sector where data integrity is critical, it is food. Verifiable records can be vital when there are food safety risks, quality disputes, or regulatory compliance requirements.
- Neutral truth – Instead of a company alone claiming its product is sustainable or safe, the idea is that third parties can validate that claim. This includes governments, auditors, health authorities, and other professional verification entities.
She considers neutrality one of the hardest aspects to implement because many organizations want to control their own narrative. However, this is precisely why she believes Web3 could be important in a market where credibility has deteriorated.
A huge industry still lagging
One striking point of the talk was the contrast between the sector’s economic size and its low level of technological maturity. Dewilt said the food industry remains the least digitized among all industries.
As an example, she mentioned that on that very day she had spoken with a retailer halting innovation projects to focus on implementing their first ERP system. In other words, while much of the world is already discussing cloud, AI agents, and advanced automation, a significant part of the food business is just starting to adopt basic Web2 tools.
She also noted that when food data is digital, in 99% of cases it resides in Excel spreadsheets. This causes issues with quality, provenance, accuracy, and consistency, especially when information must travel across producers, cooperatives, processors, brands, supermarkets, and consumers.
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