AB InBev is regarded as the world’s largest brewers and is responsible for bringing the likes of Budweiser, Stella Artois, Corona, Castle, and Victoria Bitter to the thirsty people of the world. AB InBev invested heavily into BanQu – a distributed ledger technology (DLT) startup – back in 2018 and it has now decided to double down on its series A funding. AB InBev has joined the string of big-name producers that are investing in DLT in a bid to help farmers get a fair price for their raw materials.
Giving Farmers a Fair Price
BanQu helps to connect farmers directly with producers all around the globe, cutting out the costly middlemen who take huge cuts. These massive cuts imposed by the middlemen mean that farmers get paid less than a fair price for their products, while producers are forced to increase their prices to ensure they don’t make a loss on the final goods sold. BanQu helps to connect these farmers and producers, meaning farmers will get paid a better rate for their goods while producers can start to lower prices – making the world a better place.
DLT Solving Supply Chain Issues
It’s not just pricing that DLT is helping to fix – it’s also helping to fix authenticity by phasing out imposter products. Carico Cafe Connoisseur has deployed DLT in its coffee beans to ensure that only genuine packets make it onto store shelves, meaning customers know they are getting the real beans from the heart of Africa. Elsewhere, Ford has teamed up with IBM to create a blockchain to track the supply chain of cobalt in a bid to remove illegal labor from the process. These are just two current use cases for DLT in supply chain management, but there are hundreds of others – all helping to make products safer, more reliable, and more ethical.
When BanQu goes live all around the globe, we will be able to see major producers like AB InBev buy directly from farmers, helping AB InBev to save costs and pass on the savings to the farmers. If BanQu becomes mainstream and more farmers begin to use it, we could see a shift in wealth from middlemen to grassroots material producers – a well-deserved shift seeing as the farmers do all of the hard work. This is just another case of where blockchain and DLT is helping give power and control back to those who are the beating heart of society and the supply chain.
