By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 12th, 2024
Blockchain can help the petcare industry by increasing transparency within the supply chain, which enhances business and customer experience.
Don’t we all love pets? These little bundles of joy not only spread love and cheer but also enrich our lives with their company and teach us many things. While pets have been part of human society for ages, it is only today that the pet care industry has grown to such a mammoth size.
With the internet and social media, more and more people are constantly looking for services for their beloved pet dogs, cats, iguanas (what have you) and entrepreneurs have not failed to meet the growing demand. By 2025 the global petcare market is expected to reach USD 202.6 billion. That’s a whopping amount of money.
But, how to handle this vast market in a way that is legal, smooth, transparent and stress-free? Technology has the answer: Blockchain. However, the question is, how will blockchain help the petcare industry?
What is Blockchain?
Blockchain is essentially a distributed ledger or database that records digital transactions, spread over a decentralized, peer-to-peer network. It stores data in the form of “blocks”. Each block contains information about the previous block, thus forming a “chain”. And hence, the name.
Blocks store transaction information such as date and time of purchase, and cost. In terms of a supply chain, each stage is recorded in a particular block, thus allowing complete tracking from a product’s origin to sale.
How will Blockchain Help the Petcare industry?
The petcare industry consists mainly of pet food and pet grooming. As with human diets, pet diets also undergo trends and often reflect those in the human world. In terms of quality, you only buy for your dog what you would buy for yourself.
Consumers today are highly aware of what they are eating and wearing, where it came from and what are its constituents. Unlike yesteryears when labels were only filled with art and copy, food and cosmetic labels now have to ensure transparency. It’s the same with pet care products. And that’s where blockchain comes in.
Simply put, blockchain can help the petcare industry by increasing transparency within the supply chain. Take pet food, for example. Consumers often don’t trust labels and are likely to pay more for products if they think it is nutritious enough for the pet. With blockchain, consumers actually have a way to unlock all the verified data about the product from manufacturing to sale.
It allows for the tracking of products as it moves up through the supply chain, granting customers full satisfaction as to the veracity of the product. It is simply impossible to cheat a system based on blockchain.
Blockchain Ensures Safety
One of the biggest concerns in the petcare industry is safety. Consumers are often concerned about how safe the products are. Their fears were intensified in 2007 when it came to light that the pet food supply chain could be contaminated, resulting in kidney failures and other illnesses across pets in the U.S. and Europe.
The point is that ensuring safety throughout the pet food supply chain is complicated and involves several intermediary parties at recurring costs. And even then it is often impossible to prevent an errant supplier from entering the chain. But with blockchain, all necessary data about the product and the supplier are recorded as part of the transactions. This data is immutable and cannot be altered. Any changes to the product at any point from growing to delivery is immediately reflected by the blockchain.
Thus blockchain will help the petcare industry, especially the pet food sector, by arming them with verifiable nutritional data on their products. By digitizing every step of the supply and demand chain, blockchain adds to a pet food brand’s nutritional integrity. And as everyone in the pet care industry knows, integrity is gospel.
So, turning to blockchain can not only help increase customers for the pet care industry but also make it safer for your pets.
Another major problem for the petcare industry is the lack of proper healthcare management for pets. Indeed, the untimely loss of pets is not just a loss to the pet owners but also a failure of the petcare industry. Blockchain allows pet owners to track their pet’s health, identify them and immutably store their data.
Are Petcare Companies Already Using Blockchain Technology?
One of the first shifts in the pet food industry came in the 90s after the emergence of the internet. The potential for the industry to grow into a billion-dollar enterprise has today grown manifold since. The coming of blockchain may cause a second shift in the pet food industry and help it to grow, become more profitable and easier to run.
Petcare companies such as CogniPet are already using blockchain technology to enhance their business and customer experience. CogniPet uses artificial intelligence and blockchain to create a timeline of photos of your pet so that their journeys and experiences, as well as yours, are easily recorded. The mobile phone app also allows for instant identification of the pet meaning you can never lose them. The service they provide is especially useful to breeders, buyers, and insurers of pets who can verify the origin of animals via blockchain.
Pawtocol is yet another blockchain petcare platform that uses blockchain to provide much-needed services to pet-owners. Its mobile app allows pet owners to record their pets’ nutritional and health data and access them at any time, on any device. Also, Pawtocol can help track your pet’s food needs, while keeping it safe.
Additionally, it offers a scanning device called “Paws” which uses AI-powered sensors and allows pet owners to track their beloved furballs’ needs through thick and thin.
Is Blockchain Cheaper?
Yes. Blockchain can help the petcare industry by reducing costs at an operational level. It does so, mainly by reducing the number of intermediaries required by a business to ensure the quality and authenticity of the product at multiple stages of the business.
Moreover, using blockchain-based technology reduces the need for verification. Also, it reduces the hassle of paper money and excessive documentation by arranging data into neat little dockets that can be easily accessed.
The Future of Petcare
The global petcare market is expected to grow by a CAGR of 5.4 percent from 2017 to 2025. With such a huge potential in the market and consumers becoming more and more tech-wary and aware of their pets’ needs, it is perhaps time for pet companies to look to newer technology to help it manage the demand. And blockchain can surely help petcare become a hassle-free, secure industry that can rely on digital transactions for a smooth and safe business.
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