Indian mangoes tagged with Geographical Identification (GI) will be completely traceable this season, thanks to a collaboration featuring a tech company, state government, producers and retailers.
Innoterra Tech, an Innoterra group company, has announced it is collaborating with the state government of Maharashtra, Konkan Alphonso Mango Producers and Sellers Cooperative Association – the proprietor and custodian of Alphonso Geographical Indication issued by geographical indication registry, government of India – and Alphonso mango farmers collective, to tag each Alphonso mango with FarmTrace.
FarmTrace allows consumers to scan a QR code to know the GI status and source of the Alphonso mango, right back to where the fruit was grown.
“This makes it easier for consumers to pick the original Alphonso, the most premium Indian variant of mango available globally,” Innoterra said in a statement.
The tags will be applied to approximately 100,000 tonnes of mangoes (400m individual mangoes), grown over 2,023ha of land in the Konkan belt of India by 2022, directly benefitting over 1,000 mango farmers in India.
Vivek Bhide, chairperson of Konkan Alphonso Mango Producers and Sellers Cooperative Association, said: “Recently, many national and international variants of mangoes, such as ones from Malawi in Africa, are being sold in the market as Alphonso mangoes.
“As Alphonso mangoes are GI-tagged, this is an incorrect, unlawful practice. Establishing traceability for original Alphonso mangoes will not only help consumers to get value for their money, but also curb product falsification and mislabelling,” explained Bhide.
“The true beneficiaries will be the farmers, who will immediately see an increase in their income.”
Suniti Gupta, managing director and chief executive of Innoterra Tech, added: “Our solution is based on technology architecture that links data already logged by food producers and suppliers, tracks each piece of fruit based on a unique sticker.
“Scanning the sticker QR code will let the consumers know the location of the farm, the batch number, processing unit, packaging unit, shipping information as well as complete timeline of these steps.
“Thus, the complete journey of a fruit from the farm to the retail shelf is made available to the consumers. This is especially relevant for all GI-tagged products, as authenticity and source of origin are very important in ensuring the right value for producers,” noted Gupta.
Gupta also confirmed Innoterra Tech is currently working on integrating the solution with blockchain technology to make the supply chain data verifiable and to build trust with consumers.
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