Introduction to the Interview
Felipe Ayerbe talks with Nick Baskett about their company’s technology that allows any farmer with a smartphone and a small handheld scanner to identify the quality of their beans. Felipe explains how the technology works, and why it will revolutionise productivity, increase quality, and ensure farmers get paid a fair value for their crop.
Although the product is aimed at coffee farmers, toward the end of the interview, Felipe also discusses their plans in the future for the Cocoa industry.
The Full Interview is below that you can listen to on your favourite podcast player, including Android and iTunes, and Spotify, or directly on this page. You can also watch the interview below and on our YouTube channel.
Below the interviews is a full transcript.
Interview Transcript
Nick Baskett
I’m not going to pretend I was this erudite, but I looked it up as the Greek goddess of Harvest’s or harvesting is not an outright correct.
Filipe Ayerbe
Correct. We we chose that name exactly because of that. And I am sort of a nerd on Greek mythology and stuff like that. So I always I thought that if we were doing something in every culture and harvesting, I thought that name was good. And it’s also good because it in Latin names it to measure. Right. Or or it’s an inflexion of up to measure and that is exactly what we’re doing. So that’s why we chose that name.
Nick Baskett
And have you if you’re a if you’re a fanatic of of mythology, have you read Stephen Fry book.
Filipe Ayerbe
Not yet. If it’s kind of crazy, it’s kind of crazy at this time that I pretty much don’t have it any other time except for some exercise and getting meals inside my body. And that’s it.
Nick Baskett
That’s the crazy world of the Start-Up. So let’s let’s dig into because I know you’re limited on time. Your is correct to say that you’re an Israeli based Start-Up, but you’re out in Colombia. Correct.
Filipe Ayerbe
So, yeah, we’re we’re both based in Colombia and in Israel, sort of. And that’s that’s part of I think the secret of our success is that what we do is that obviously Israel is very well known on on innovation in adtech, innovation. But what we sort of recognised is that a lot of the innovation that happens in Israel is focussed on sort of like seasonal crops, never tropical crops like coffee in itself. And what we saw is that a lot of those technologies we could adapt and develop for tropical crops and that that’s in a sense how how Demetria got formed we saw technology.
Filipe Ayerbe
We understood sort of the problematic or the issues around sort of the value chain and coffee and other commodities as well. And we said, OK, there is a huge value to to bridge that gap to right. To to sort of adopt technology that already was proven for other crops. But on a on a on a revolutionary way in in tropical crops and probably stocks, we should probably start, Felipe, by actually saying what what Demetria does.
Nick Baskett
I’ve downloaded your apps, by the way, and I tried to log in but but it wouldn’t let me.
Filipe Ayerbe
But I know about we can we can we can set you up. We can set you up. It has to be it’s not designed for somebody to go right off.
Nick Baskett
I was just saying how far I could get. I actually didn’t expect to get it to get it running. But let’s tell everybody what Demetria is all about, because it’s kind of radical, you know.
Filipe Ayerbe
So we are we’re about sort of. The problem in coffee, at least the way we see it or the opportunity depends on where you stand and the opportunity. Coffee is very significant because coffee has gone through a voyage of of a premium in Asia. OK, so coffee today is more an experience rather than just basically getting your caffeine rush in the market or wherever and whenever in the day and and taste or the sensory experience of coffee is the most important value driver.
Filipe Ayerbe
And we’re still doing the same assessment of taste that has been done for centuries, which is actually doing a cupping test, which I’m expert, a qualified expert does the cupping. This means that. Because it’s a qualified cupper. The vast majority if not 100 percent of the smallholder farmers in the world. People don’t necessarily understand this, but probably your podcast listeners do. If they understand coffee, it’s smallholder farmers. So it’s two to four hectares in our farm average.
Filipe Ayerbe
And that is the case, for example, here in Colombia. So it’s amazing that. The vast majority of coffee growers have never tasted their crops. They don’t know what they produce. So what we are about is. About transforming the way we assess the quality of coffee through technology. So we’ve developed a technology that allows anyone, anywhere with a sensor and a smartphone or tablet to be able to assess the sensorial quality. You could call it taste, but you’re not tasting it of coffee in green coffee beans.
Filipe Ayerbe
And this, we believe, is potentially revolutionary for the industry because it gives farmers a level of empowerment that they didn’t have before, because evidently, if what you don’t measure, you don’t manage it. So we kicked around in the industry, the beef that I’ve seen it, it’s that sort of coffee. The fact that sometimes coffee is volatile, you probably understand that it’s not only that the right way to generate the quality of the coffee, but from harvest to harvest, it changes.
Filipe Ayerbe
And and if this is such a volatile, quality generating sort of process and there’s no data in this process. Right. Absolutely no data. It’s completely intuitive.
Nick Baskett
So you’ve got just to just to be really clear to anybody new to to the company, you’ve basically developed an application which you can put on your mobile phone with Android or iOS or whatever you can, an application you can put on the phone. And there’s a separate and I’ve seen the video of there’s a separate, very, very small sensor which is doing what spectrum analysis that. And and I mean, we’re talking about the size of a couple of inches, something like that.
Nick Baskett
And the two pair up and you scan the beans with the sensor and the information is passed, the mobile phone, and it gives you information about the taste profile of the beans.
Nick Baskett
Is that in a nutshell? Is that at the beginning? I know. I know you do a lot more than that.
Nick Baskett
But in the beginning, that’s that’s that’s a very
Filipe Ayerbe
that’s a very, very well summarised way of putting it. Yes, absolutely. That’s exactly it. So. And it is it is ubiquitous, it’s allowing ubiquitous measurement of of sensory quality and and once again, people in the general public do not understand, but probably your listeners do. Is that for you to cop, for you to be able to assess the quality of coffee you need to take green coffee, which is the standard form of traded coffee, and you need to roast it and then you need to prepare a cup of coffee.
Filipe Ayerbe
And it’s not only the access to the expert, but it’s also access to the equipment. This is sophisticated and expensive equipment. So and it’s time consuming. So a copying session could take like 40 or 50 minutes. So that is that is that in our belief, it is a structural marketing efficiency, right. The most important quality or the most important value driver in coffee, which is taste, is already measured very few at the end of the day, at the end of the value chain.
Filipe Ayerbe
It’s crazy. It’s crazy. And that’s what we want to change. That’s what we want to change. And and so our approach to the market is basically we’re developing applications from a top down way. So we’re trying to establish this from the buyers downwards so the buyers get comfortable with the technology to start using it. But are our primary goal is to go to the farmers where the farmers themselves.
Nick Baskett
I mean, I’m very interested in this because, you know, it’s a separate industry, but we also cup of cocoa. And last year we gave a couple hundred bars of chocolate. We bought a couple of hundred bars of chocolate. We gave out to farmers in Liberia because these cocoa farmers had never tasted chocolate.
Nick Baskett
And it was something we did right before Christmas because it was a sweet thing to do.
Nick Baskett
But but it’s something you said something earlier just really resonated with me, which was that you’re saying that farmers have never tasted there, that some farmers have never tasted their own their own product.
Filipe Ayerbe
That’s right, that’s right.
Nick Baskett
I didn’t know that and that
Filipe Ayerbe
and the reason the reason being is, is that if you think of the market structure, right, so a green coffee bean is produced in countries like Colombia, Brazil, et cetera. And the roasters historically has been in Europe. Right. So, so. So in a nutshell, up until recently in Colombia. Only the best coffee was available, available for it was easier for you to get the best coffee from Colombia than for me here in Colombia.
Nick Baskett
OK, I understand.
Filipe Ayerbe
Up until recently and so so typically what has happened is that because roasting is not done on premise and just recently roasting machines have become miniaturised. So there is the possibility of of doing a, let’s say, efficient roasting, roasting from a micro roasting, both of you. And obviously, you probably have touched this in your in your podcast a lot. So up until recently, it was it was it was almost unheard of that a farmer understood the quality of the coffee that they were produce.
Nick Baskett
So now what they’ll do with your equipment, what they’ll get is data. So because you’re right, they’re not going to be tasting it, but they’ll get an idea of where their coffee fits in terms of the taste profile. And you know what people, what people, what kind of market that might be, presumably for that kind of for that kind of flavour, for that kind of coffee.
Nick Baskett
How exactly can you articulate how exactly the farmer will benefit from that knowledge? Will they be able to change something or will it maybe introduce new opportunities for them to to market their beans? But basically, what’s in it for the farmer?
Filipe Ayerbe
Yeah, that’s that’s a that’s a very good question. It goes to the core of what we want to want to achieve. And so let me tell you a story. Right. And you probably have heard it before. And the story is the following. I’ve been to these cupping contests for for a long time here in Colombia and places, other places and the farmers who there and they submit their coffee for evaluation. And the guys have that always get the greatest points and they get awarded the coffee and they have a lot that’s, I don’t know, generates a huge profit.
Filipe Ayerbe
You you go back and ask him, what did you do differently to produce? This cup of coffee. And they cannot they don’t know, they don’t know. They don’t know, so it’s amazing, right? And these these are and these are the farmers that get to these contests are the cream of the crop. So these are the most sophisticated of these sophisticated of the farmers. So it is not only giving them empowerment to understand what they’re selling, which is huge, OK, because I understand this in a country like Colombia, a farmer, when they sell their coffee, they go to a co-operative.
Filipe Ayerbe
The co-operative doesn’t have the cupping capacity. So what does a co-operative do? They’ll pay you standard commodity price coffee. It’s later down when somebody’s cups it and understand, oh, this coffee’s pretty good that they understand there’s a premium there. The farmer didn’t receive that premium. OK, so that’s the first lever of value, the second level of value, what I just mentioned this actually once you start measuring quality, you can manage one. So it’s understanding the processes that help you or allowed you to produce that.
Filipe Ayerbe
There are some processes that you can control, like the terroir, like we were discussing, you cannot control. Well, at least you cannot move those levers easily on a on a weekly basis, like whether the variety that you have on the ground. But there are a bunch of levers that you can so everything around fertilisation when you do the harvesting, how you do the fermentation. That is a huge, huge.
Nick Baskett
You just very key, isn’t it? Yeah, a lot of talk on that at the moment.
Filipe Ayerbe
Yeah, and and I’m sure that, you know about these these exotic coffees that need to go through an animal’s intestine and they seem to be the great deal, I’ve never tasted them at the end of the day for that.
Filipe Ayerbe
At the end of the day, all those processes are just fermentation.
Filipe Ayerbe
Yeah, right. So so what we what we envision is to be able to give data and give tools for farmers, for that farmer that I ask. OK, but you know what happened? And he will say yes. And now I know what I need to do because I have data and I can replicate what I do. And so this is I can make it more consistent. Yeah. Yeah, this makes total sense.
Nick Baskett
So, I mean, I’m actually kind of a numbers guy, so I totally get that. And when I’m going into if I ever go into a business and it’s very interesting in our industry, a lot of people talk about ethics. But I learnt this a long time ago.
Nick Baskett
I believe your ex McKinsey. Is this right? McKinsey? That’s right. Yeah. So about 25 or 30 years ago, I read a book called The McKinsey Way.
Nick Baskett
I remember how long that was a very long time ago. And I still remember some of the lessons I learnt from from from that time. I think I was reading every book I could on on big consultancies. I was working for Cap Gemini actually at the time. And and one of them, I think it was maybe the McKinsey Way, but one of them said, if you want to really that companies say all sorts of stuff. But if you want to really know what they value, you learn what they measure.
Nick Baskett
And if they’re not measuring it, they don’t value it.
Nick Baskett
So correct measurements are are the key of everything. So I imagine that this also translates back to to you as well, because you need to this system and there’s the talk about it being AI and machine learning or whatever on the back end. You’re getting data in order for that to to really work. You need data to work off of. You need data sets. So presumably.
Nick Baskett
As farmers use this, you’re gathering that data, there needs to be some kind of presumably some kind of feedback as to if it’s telling you if the data is telling you one thing at some point that has to be validated or or repudiated so that you can learn from that data and say, oh, OK, we didn’t quite get that right.
Nick Baskett
We got some things right. We maybe didn’t get other things right. We need to improve. How does that talk us a little bit through how that process works?
Filipe Ayerbe
That’s a very good question. So that’s it, that’s how that is why we’re taking this top down, OK, because first we need to establish what is good and what is not from a from a very simplistic point of view. Right. And and and the people who have the power to say that are the ones that are close to the market, that the roasters, once they understand what is good for you or for me from a coffee perspective, what is quality?
Filipe Ayerbe
OK, so that’s why we’re measuring at that level. That’s what we’re starting to say. OK, we have we have an understanding of what is good and what is not good. So when we trickle down, we understand what is good and what is not good and we can give that feedback. Yeah, I so so that’s that’s a that’s a very simplistic way. Obviously, it’s more complex than that. But if you boil it down to its parts, that’s exactly what happened.
Nick Baskett
Great. So what stage is the business right now? I know you’ve just taken a three million. You take well, three million funding from from well, I think your sister company.
Filipe Ayerbe
So you and local and local Colombian investors. OK, fantastic. Well, so, yeah. So for us it was easier to tap into local Colombian investors because it when you’re Colombian, you’re never more than one degree of separation away from a coffee grower. OK, so everybody understands. And so it was easier for us to do that. Where we are at right now is we we’ve proven the concept, a lot of people in the industry. When we started sort of working, they said, you’re crazy.
Filipe Ayerbe
This is impossible. OK, we we were fortunate enough that a couple of of of places, of clients in the industry had the technological background to understand that this might be possible. And they believed in us. They believed that this could be the future. And so where we are right now is we’ve already developed. Tested, piloted and rolling out an application with actually does described earlier on, which is with a very small sensor, handheld sensor sensor as a purchase point where the farmer goes and sells his coffee, they’re able to determine if it is a particular high value based profile that they’re looking for in that region.
Filipe Ayerbe
Or not. And and so it already tested, tried and tested. We’ve done obviously the first invoicing in one thing, so we believe that at this point in time, we’re at that point in time where we’re given that the technology is tested. We have a lot of conversations commercially on development in parallel and that we believe that it’s time for the world to know. And we’re in the process of basically doing a bigger financing round to wrap this up worldwide.
Filipe Ayerbe
That’s the objective. So those those are those are the two sort of main sort of workstream from the market side and from the sort of financing side that supports the growth of the company.
Nick Baskett
Fantastic. So so you have a technology, it’s proven you’ve got some revenues, seed funding, and you’re going to go for your series A and then go big globally. That’s correct. How exciting. What next? Well, no wonder you’re not getting much sleep and that can see starting to get light outside.
Nick Baskett
So you were there. That’s right. We’ve talked through the night now, Filipe, and that’s right.
Filipe Ayerbe
That’s right. Yeah. So unfortunately, I have these because you would hear a combination of traffic and birds chirping all the time. So these are pretty good. You know, and you you mentioned cocoa and that you discover cocoa. That would be our next step. Now, you’re getting ahead of me now because I was going to be my question, you’re making me look like a bad interviewer because I’m you’re taking your answering all the questions before I ask them.
Nick Baskett
Let me let me just get ahead of that. So, Philippe, what’s what’s next?
Filipe Ayerbe
I apologise.
Filipe Ayerbe
So Cocoa’s next and we started in parallel with cocoa and coffee. And to be honest, the make as a small Start-Up, you need to choose your your battles early on. And the big advantage the coffee has over cocoa, which is starting to change, is getting coffee, at least the cupping standard. There’s a common language across the board in coffee. And that is that is that that is a fundamental input to our technology right now, because if we have a standard, we’re able to codify that standard in cocoa.
Filipe Ayerbe
It’s being codified.
Nick Baskett
Yeah, there’s actually work underway, but it’s not it’s not there yet.
Filipe Ayerbe
Yeah, it’s not there yet. So so it would be ideal for us if that standard would be better once we deploy this to the cocoa. But it is what it is. Right. So but so we started in parallel because as you may know, the market structure for coffee and cocoa are sort of twins.
If you. No, you’re frozen there for a second. Let’s see if you come back. Philip, if you if you can hear me, you’ve frozen at your end.
Many apologies, it’s just the way it is. That is the way they it. Where did I drop off? I was dropped off.
Nick Baskett
Are you saying that the coffee in the cocoa industries are and then I was like that, that at that cliff-hanger, they’re just very briefly, I was moderating at Chocoa last week and it was almost comical. We were talking to a there was a cocoa, a chocolate maker and I would to make out in Ghana. And she said literally it was like this. She said, but the most important thing I really want to get across today is that was it.
She got out.
We never heard back from her.
Filipe Ayerbe
So that’s a good start. Well, I fortunately, I came back. I mean, it’s not it’s not as revolutionary, but they’re doing right now that the two industries are doing small. Their farmers do not understand their quality and do not have a lever of understanding their quality, do not have access to technology. There is huge even even bigger than in coffee, which is which is concerning, but a huge concern on unsustainability and in cocoa. Yeah, right there in coffee as well about whether like coffee growers and cocoa growers are getting older and there’s not a second generation that wants to continue the business.
Filipe Ayerbe
And we see this as a way also for for younger generations to get it, get passionate about the business of giving. If they want to be connected, they want to be in the digital world. So so there’s a huge parallel from the farmers side and even more so the trader and sort of out of that roaster side. Right. So there are there are huge overlap. Some of the trade, the largest traders in the world in coffee, the largest in the world and the same thing.
Nick Baskett
They’re operating in both commodities. You’re right.
Filipe Ayerbe
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. So so it makes sense to do it, to do, to do, to do cocoa. And with the processes at the farm level are also very similar. So once again, cocoa need to get fermented. And it needs to dry like coffee, exactly the same thing, and once again, fermentation, big value driver. And it’s it’s like, I think the fermentation of coffee and see the fermentation in cocoa and I’ve seen it.
Filipe Ayerbe
And you ask them, OK, why four hours is more or less whatever there is no there’s no.
Nick Baskett
But it also varies depending, as you say, on the harvest and everything else. And somebody asked this question on on the forum last last week. And there was actually a poll put out which was what was the biggest influence on flavour. This is in cocoa, what was the biggest influence on flavour? And the majority said fermentation. And somebody asked a question to I think it was Vincent Mourou of or in Vietnam. And he he’s an award winning chocolate cocoa producer and a chocolate maker running his own shop.
Nick Baskett
So he’s truly a Tree to Bar in a producer. And they asked the question on fermentation, what how do you know when it’s the right time to to start? And he said, when it tastes.
Nick Baskett
Yeah. you taste it? And that was it. That was that was his answer. So, yeah. Look, I can see I can see this is this is an industry as as they say in the technology space, ripe for disruption. And it’s fascinating what you’re what you’re doing. I want to because I know you’re limited in time. I want to steer the conversation a little bit towards the future plans. And and so and also my mind was thinking of different possibilities.
Nick Baskett
So so the farmers use this tool and it becomes a it becomes a tool where they can start to get information that they just didn’t have before and maybe start to base some of their decision making on on some analysis and facts. And then they can start to steer. Even if it’s not super granular, they can start to say, let’s make some of these bigger changes or some of these more macro changes, which we know led us in the right direction last time.
Nick Baskett
So then they they scan and they get a result from there. From the phone. It says this is the flavour profile of these beans.
Nick Baskett
I know on your app, one of the things that kind of excited me was that buyers can then look and and do a search for a particular type of a flavour that they’re looking for and find a supplier. So my question is, is this a is this going to be a facilitator for direct trade? And is that part of your business model to to build a marketplace?
Filipe Ayerbe
Yeah, so. So the short answer is we don’t know yet, right, because this is this is as you said, this is potentially one way to to to address that issue.
Filipe Ayerbe
But evidently it does give you transparency because that by by by farmers being able to measure and this information being in the cloud, a buyer of coffee can can can detect that information and contact the producer, say I want your coffee and. It it’s it’s I, I we really haven’t gotten through the thinking process of going there, but it could be, could be, could could possibly be. Now the the advantage of doing a top down approach is that when the value chain get engaged.
Filipe Ayerbe
And in doing this technology is that there is a huge incentive for promotion for the farmers. So one of the one of the biggest challenges we have is affordability for the farm. Right. So despite the fact that the sensors are so small, they’re literally this size and they’re in the hundreds of dollars range. So and that’s still that’s still that’s still leaves out a lot of the farmers out out of that. All right. We’re close, but there’s the chicken and egg situation that you need huge volumes for it to be low.
Filipe Ayerbe
How do you get the huge volumes if the price is is is not not where it’s supposed to be, but we’re solving that equation. And the reason and part of the way we’re solving it is that we’re giving roasters and traders huge incentive for them to incentivise or foment the use of the technology or finance or even even subsidise the use of that technology by farmer. So so that that it could go either way, but right now, the process we’re going is exactly what I describe right now.
Filipe Ayerbe
We’re using the top down approach also to be able to to make sure that far more affordability is better.
Nick Baskett
Yeah, I don’t think that’s that’s great. And I know that I should look this up. Didn’t do my homework. But, you know, IBM has this block chain solution for me for helping to find provenance of of where your coffees come from. And so I think Starbucks did a deal with them. So you kind of scan your code, your OMR code on a Starbucks cup and take a look. It’s called farmers something or other.
Filipe Ayerbe
I think it’s called a farmer Connect.
Nick Baskett
Thank you. I thank God one of us did our homework. So so but I mean, the mixed reports I got on social media and this is very anecdotal, but the mixed reports on social media was it wasn’t giving an awful lot of information. People are a little bit disappointed, at least maybe it was early days. They were disappointed that it didn’t really give them a lot of detail from from the test that I’d seen people carrying out.
Nick Baskett
And I wondered whether whether he could throw another another trendy technology in with what you’re doing and add Blockchain change to your A.I. And become super valuable because, you know, you stack these things up. Right, and just add another zero onto the valuation.
Nick Baskett
But no, in all seriousness, have you thought about if you’re doing that, you’re scanning it. The question comes is can you can you evidence that, you know, what was scanned is what is is what is produced and and what people are putting into that cup? Have you thought about that problem?
Filipe Ayerbe
Yes, absolutely. And so there’s something in the works, so. So to your to your to to to your last question, so we are working on a traceability application, right.
Filipe Ayerbe
And so our approach is different because. Since we are, we will be able to connect the physical world with a video and the way to connect those is through the sensory fingerprint. So each individual batch of coffee has an individual sensory fingerprint. Yeah. So if we’re if we’re able to read it to detect the sensory analysis, the copying, we’re able to use it as a fingerprint so we can track that particular batch of coffee through each step of the chain.
Filipe Ayerbe
And we can tell a buyer. OK, this coffee is this coffee that got sent by this person and we can detect it’s been adulterated or not or it’s been figited or not.
Nick Baskett
Oh I see.
Filipe Ayerbe
So it it’s it’s kind of a revolutionary way of doing traceability because traceability historically has been I can trace the packaging. Yeah, right, yep, but it’s disconnected with the actual content.
Nick Baskett
Yeah, you’re right, it’s and there’s a huge industry all around track and trace on packaging and everything from holographic stickers to all sorts of things.
Nick Baskett
But it’s never really been for I don’t think anybody finds it a particularly ideal solution that we’ve that we’ve come across yet. I love the idea of the sensory fingerprint. It’s a great it’s a great name that communicates what it does.
Filipe Ayerbe
So, so so that’s that’s what we’re trying to do, it is it is an ambitious from a technological point of view, because you need massive amounts of data. So it’s not sort of in the in the early stages of our development rollout.
Filipe Ayerbe
It’s on the back end because we need once we get all the data for all the other things, then we will be able to have that that the capacity to do that. But it is in a way, solving that is something that is not only solving what quality, but from where it came from. What’s the voyage of that bean through the value chain so that the consumer understands and really make sure that he’s supporting whoever he wants to be supporting the FairTrade, but also for for the whole value chain?
Filipe Ayerbe
Huge value because there’s a lot of shenanigans that goes on in the industry.
Nick Baskett
And you know what? It’s I’m I’m really giving me a lot to think about the very conscious of time. We’ve got a few minutes left, but I are you give me a lot to think about both in the coffee and the cocoa sectors.
Nick Baskett
The cocoa sectors have a different set of problems that they face, especially given in in Cote d’Ivoire, especially in but also in Ghana, basically out of West Africa. They have issues around deforestation and child slavery. And I’m now now thinking, wow, if you can actually put a fingerprint on where this cocoa has come from, then then I’m wondering I need to go and think about that. But I’m wondering how how that can contribute to the sustainability of sustainable supply chain problems that that big companies as well as smaller companies.
Nick Baskett
But they face because putting practical audits on the ground, doing, you know, doing audits is expensive. And so people don’t do it very often.
Nick Baskett
So there has to be a another way. And so, listen, we’re going to wrap it up because we’ve got a couple of minutes left.
Filipe Ayerbe
Please let me before before that. And we can spill over like five minutes, OK? It’s interesting.
Filipe Ayerbe
It’s a I have an audience and it’s good to have an audience that knows the industry that typically we need to start from from scratch. But this is this is good because it’s a it’s both it’s a it’s a good conversation. So and related to that point, right? So because that terroir sort of is imprints on that sensory fingerprint, you can detect the region. The coffee or the cocoa was what’s grown. So with big data, you can actually detect, OK, this coffee is Colombian coffee, this is and this is not Colombian, right?
Filipe Ayerbe
So you can go to that level of of sophistication like a Bordeaux. It taste different than whatever. It’s the same thing. That’s what your palate is telling you is the same thing that the chemistry of. So so in a nutshell, that that is the direction that we want to go to solve all those issues around ethical sourcing, sustainability, which which is what traceability as a whole encompasses. Hmm.
Nick Baskett
Now, this is really interesting. So we will have to catch up again. When will be another. We’ll have to we’ll talk offline. But you’re going to tell me when the next the next point in your business plan has got to. And we can have a follow on conversation because I think this is a fascinating conversation and I’d love to to keep it going.
Filipe Ayerbe
Absolutely. So it’s for me as well, because, like I said, when somebody knows the industry and resonates, it’s also good to know because obviously this is a business opportunity.
Filipe Ayerbe
But at the core, it’s also an impact at
Nick Baskett
the best ones we can combine making money with doing something that’s actually having a positive impact, then everybody’s a winner, right?
Filipe Ayerbe
That’s correct. That’s great.
Nick Baskett
Thank you so much for your time. You’re starting your day. It’s light out. That’s. So. So have a great day.
Nick Baskett
And I look forward to following the activities of your business. Thank you very much, Mick. Have a good one. Bye bye. Thanks, Philippe. Microtel Chao.