South Australian paddock-to-beverage traceability project takes off

South Australian grain growers will participate in an exciting new collaboration between Coopers Brewery, Grain Producers South Australia (GPSA) and agritech startup Trust Provenance, which will see barley tracked and traced from paddock-to-beverage.

Through $100,000 funding awarded through the South Australian Government’s AgTech Growth Fund in June 2022, barley growers will work with Trust Provenance’s software to capture data points along the barley’s journey, then link into Coopers’ software to enable a full paddock-to-beverage traceability platform.

GPSA Chief Executive Officer, Brad Perry said it’s a unique opportunity for South Australian malting barley growers to take part in an innovative paddock-to-beverage traceability pilot project.

“Many of our grain producers already supply high quality malting barley to Coopers Brewery and in this project, they will be following barley through the many stages to the end product – a high quality beer,” said Mr Perry.

“As part of the traceability program, engagement will occur with a number of growers directly and with grain trading company ADM, to cover all critical tracking events and understand the practical and commercial requirements of all stakeholders.

“The growing global trend for real-time and transparent proof of claim is finding its way into procurement programs for food manufacturers and retailers.

“Making sure South Australian grain producers are future-proofed against evolving supply chain demands is an important part of this program.”

Trust Provenance Chief Executive Officer Andrew Grant said data will be viewable through a unique QR code for each batch of barley.

“This allows for real-time monitoring, management and feedback and allows grain producers and Coopers Brewery to provide a new level of trust on quality and sustainability and align with consumers’ demand for greater transparency on the beverages they are consuming,” said Andrew.

Coopers Brewery Malting Manager, Doug Stewart added, “Traceability with this barley application will allow us to more clearly demonstrate the superior qualities and provenance of the grains we use, which provides a range of monitoring, food safety and marketing advantages.”

RELATED: The rising potential of Australian perennial wheat

Announcing the AgTech Growth funding recipients in June 2022, Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development Clare Scriven said: “South Australian farmers have a long standing and proud history of being some of the most innovative in the world, and this funding will boost the opportunities to advance their agtech, not just on farm but throughout the agriculture supply chain.

“These projects will help our primary producers overcome challenges and barriers they have identified and I’m looking forward to seeing firsthand how these projects are delivered over the coming months.”

RELATED: What makes South Australia the state of innovation?

The AgTech Growth Fund (AGF) helps accelerate the development and commercialisation of game-changing technology solutions in South Australia’s agricultural sector, for significant production challenges to increase productivity and profitability.

The South Australia’s Government’s fund provides non-repayable grants of up to $100,000 to projects addressing a specific industry challenge in areas that focus on:

• digital agricultural software or hardware such as sensors, imagery, precision agriculture, and data stewardship
• smart farm equipment such as robotics, machinery or automation
• supply chain technology such as traceability.

RELATED: ‘Becoming makers, not takers of agritech’ with Sarah Nolet

Successful projects of the AgTech Growth Fund 2022 include:

• McLaren Vale Wine Grape and Tourism Association – towards creating high-resolution digital vineyard maps of the McLaren Vale wine region.
• Beston Global Food Company – to digitally capture the reduction in methane gas emissions from dairy cows from the use of food supplements in a controlled trial on two South Australian dairy farms.
• Trust Provenance – towards a pilot project to implement traceability software to track the grain journey from the paddock to Coopers Brewery to make beer and eventually export barley to global brewers.
• Coolsan – towards developing an effective ‘in-box’ hydrogen peroxide vapour (HPV) generating product to help maintain the quality and reduce the spoilage of raw agricultural commodities throughout medium and long transportation journeys.
• Flux Robotics Pty Ltd – to build and demonstrate a mechanical weeding system initially for the horticultural sector before being scaled up for broadacre productions.
• Blue Farm Intelligence Pty Ltd – towards a pilot program to develop a rapid design and software product prototype to track and trace oysters during their life cycle including cool chain temperature logging.
• Australian Pork Research Institute Ltd – towards developing a lab-on-a-chip sensing system to objectively assess biomarkers in real-time which are reflective of pain, health and wellbeing of the animal, replacing current subjective and costly measures, and once substantiated, can be expanded to other livestock industries.
• Cropify Pty Ltd – towards developing a Smart Classification system that uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to identify defects in, and classify, small red lentils (and eventually other pulses) with the aim of eventually replacing the current subjective based assessments of pulses classification.
• Amanda Mader (Gumpara Wines) – towards producing and installing three ‘load cells’ in a vineyard demonstration site to enable the continuous log of berry weight for analysing the relationship between environmental factors such as heat waves and rainfall to the pattern of berry weight gain or shrinkage during the period between the ripening of the grapes and harvest.

RELATED: Data interoperability and the digital revolution of agriculture

For further information about the AgTech Growth Fund, or if you’re interested in applying for the next round, please contact: Robyn Terry – Senior AgTech Extension Officer via email: [email protected].

This article first appeared on Grain Producers SA here.

Enjoyed this story? Want to learn more about the Asia Pacific region’s innovative agrifood tech ecosystem? Sign up for our newsletter here and receive fresh stories about global leaders, farmers, startups and innovators driving collaborative change.