Blockchain & the Alcohol Industry

The alcohol industry as we all know is growing at an exponential rate. This industry includes bar merchants, suppliers, wholesalers, and producers. According to data from multiple sources, the industry grew to an estimated $1.25 trillion in 2016. Considering its current pace, the industry is expected to hit the $2 Trillion mark by the year 2025.

Various issues with providers throughout the supply chain exist as well, and it is currently difficult to establish accountability with so many stakeholders involved. Says Jessica G. Contreras, CEO of AgreCoin.

The application of this technology allows tracking of any particular product from manufacturers to consumers. With each bottle having an attached tag it provides complete information about the product. A powerful artificial intelligence-based analysis system generates recommendations for consumers and collects statistical data for producers.

Problems of the alcohol market

There are several key problems in the alcoholic beverage market:
Counterfeit products – The producer loses profits, and the buyer loses the trust of the brand.

Legislative restrictions on advertising – Advertising campaigns are prohibited or substantially restricted resulting in the basic marketing tools being ineffective.

The attraction of investments – Manufacturers of craft alcohol experience difficulty in attracting funds to expand their projects.

The problem of choice – Consumers experience difficulty in choosing high-quality alcohol at an affordable price.

Existing tools do not allow these problems to be solved quickly. Excise stamps are easily forged and do not contain information about the product qualities.
Searching for this information on the Internet takes a long time making price comparison and authentication almost an insoluble task for the consumer

Probable Solutions

The idea behind using Blockchain platform is to provide quick access to information about the authenticity and taste of the product the customer is about to purchase. The project helps the buyer to choose a quality product and provides the following capacities:

Authentication of goods – All product information can be read by smartphone applications from an NFC tag attached to each bottle.

The system of ratings and reviews – The buyer sees all the product reviews left by other consumers. The availability of reviews increases the probability of buying by 10%.

Availability and prices – The geolocation data will enable the display of prices and availability in the nearest retail outlets.

The built-in AI assistant will recommend the prospective buyer a range of suitable drinks based on his previous experience and preferences.

Activity rewards – Users are rewarded in cryptocurrency for any activity within the Gese network.

The advertiser is provided with tools for effective targeted marketing, as well as consumer feedback mechanisms.

This provides advertisers the following capacities:

Priority placement of their products in the lists of recommendations;
Promotion of their goods within blogs;

Geolocation data based placement of information about product availability and pricing at the points of sale.
By using NFC tags on their products, manufacturers gain competitive advantages.

Features of Blockchain

All the participants’ information will be placed within the blockchain.

Main features of the chain
High bandwidth and scalability
Ability to work with ‘smart’ contracts
To this end, an original blockchain has been developed
It works on the basis of the mechanism for achieving the Proof-of-Authority (PoA) consensus

This blockchain has already gained a good reputation on the Graphene platform and within the Steemit community. The PoA algorithm is the refined Proof-Of-Stake consensus mechanism. The network security and availability are supported by validators. This allows creating new blocks at short intervals. The average block generation time is approximately 5 seconds.

For the convenience of users, a mobile application will be developed. It replicates the web interface functionality as well as offers additional features:

Definition of geolocation;
Reading of NFC-tags.

One of the things blockchain does is facilitate greater visibility and trust. In embedding it across our applications and network, enabling supply chains that are smarter, faster and more transparent from sourcing all the way through settlement.