OriginTrail and Matilda Ho: The Chinese Entrepreneur Who Inspired Us With Her Story of Good Food

04. May 2018 Press Releases

At the invitation of a locally-based blockchain company, OriginTrail, one of the most prominent online entrepreneurs in Asia, Matilda Ho, visited Slovenia. Ho is the founder of the Bits x Bites technology accelerator and the Yimishiji online store in Shanghai. At the exclusive event, held on Thursday, 3^rd of May, at the BTC Business Club in the Crystal Palace, she spoke with a select few Slovenian business women and men about her life and business journey, and her cooperation with OriginTrail, putting blockchain technology into practice. Yimishiji’s organic e-commerce store connects trusted producers with buyers in urban areas, and the Bits x Bites promoter targets the technology and nutrition integration niche. With these two ventures, Matilda Ho is charting a sustainable future for food and solving global challenges.

»Food safety is a major challenge in China, so, consumers are becoming more and more aware of where their food comes from. In China, for example, in 2016, more than half a million food safety incidents were reported. Yimishiji began its journey as a small online marketplace, and now it is the leading provider of organic food in Shanghai. The data management technology which uses the blockchain, developed by OriginTrail, opens up new possibilities for creating trust both between business partners and with customers,« said Matilda Ho at the presentation in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In the past, she spoke about her commitment to the future of good food in an inspiring TED talk, which has more than a million views.

OriginTrail co-founder & COO, Žiga Drev, said: “With OriginTrail, we introduced a blockchain food tracking system for the Chinese online marketplace Yimishiji, which further empowers customers to trust where their food comes from. This cooperation is unique not only for our team, but also for Slovenian companies, as we enable them to bridge the growing Chinese market and the opportunity to highlight the advantages of our products with the help of our technology.” EU members export 8 billion euros a year to China .

Ho’s mission, advocating for solving food safety challenges through new technologies, is closely intertwined with the work of the OriginTrail team and the potential of the Slovenian economy to provide customers with quality products through the verification of origin and the transparency of the supply chain. This also applies to the field of logistics, where OriginTrail is working with the BTC Logistic Center. The companies recently announced their cooperation, which will lead to the implementation of blockchain technology in the logistics of FMCG products. According to mag. Damjan Kralj, board member and marketing director at the BTC Company, this cooperation offers promising opportunities in the field of logistics, within the framework of the BTC Living Lab ecosystem.

The meeting was endorsed by MEP Franc Bogovič, who is participating alongside OriginTrail on EU’s Smart Villages project. This initiative seeks to take advantage of new technologies in European rural areas under the new Common Agricultural Policy. In his speech at the meeting, he stressed the importance of new technologies, such as the blockchain, to ensure the visibility of quality European food producers and to combat unfair practices. OrigintTrail’s Drev recently presented the company’s solution at the Smart Villages Conference in Bled, attended by European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan.