In this podcast we speak to Ellen Moorehead and Scott Grant about ubloquity’s Innovative Leap with Digital Catapult and McColgan's Quality Foods.

ubloquity, a frontrunner in distributed ledger technology solutions based in Banbridge, Northern Ireland, is helping transform data management in the food industry.

Our flagship paVe platform is not just a tool; it's an innovative approach to upholding the integrity of critical data in supply chains in an increasingly complex world.

The Digital Catapult project aimed to revolutionise the way critical data is captured, verified, and stored on ubloquity’s paVe platform. Our goal was to establish a secure chain of custody, demonstrating compliance with set auditing standards.

Armed with a £100,000 Digital Catapult grant, our six-month journey focused on capturing critical data from its source, ensuring its security on a distributed ledger, and granting access to key stakeholders. These included the data originator (a food testing lab), the compliance coordinator (the factory’s food safety technical team), and the retail customer or their independent auditor.

The Challenge: 
Traditional compliance and auditing methods in food manufacturing are often manual, time-consuming, with processes that are at risk of human-error. Ellen Moorhead from our project team explains, "Our objective was to address the cumbersome and potentially error-prone process of data management in the food industry."

The ubloquity Solution:
Our tech team, led by Scott Grant, developed a solution based on a distributed ledger system. “We introduced a system to digitise and secure the entire data journey, from the laboratory to the final audit,” explains Scott. “This approach streamlines the process and guarantees data integrity and transparency.”

Key Features of Our Solution:
- Efficiency: Automated data ingestion reduced manual entry time, leading to operational efficiency.
- Transparency: The introduction of an immutable audit trail fostered unprecedented trust among stakeholders.
- Cost-Effectiveness: The project aimed to demonstrate up to 30% cost savings due to the streamlined processes.

Ellen elaborates on the project's impact, "We transformed static, manual processes into dynamic, digital ones, reducing human intervention and enhancing data reliability." Scott adds, “Our system provided real-time, immutable data access to various stakeholders, revolutionising compliance in the food industry.”

Real-World Application and Future Scope

Our project's success was evident in practical applications. Ellen says, “Consider the lab result process – previously managed through emails and manual spreadsheet entries, now automated and securely stored on our platform. This saves time and resources and minimises potential human errors.”

Looking to the future, Scott sees vast potential: “What we’ve achieved with McColgan’s is just the beginning. The possibilities for enhancing compliance and audit efficiency are immense and span various industries and sectors, not just food.”

Conclusion: Pioneering a New Era in Data Management

Our Digital Catapult project with McColgan’s is a testament to ubloquity’s commitment to driving innovation for practical applications. “We’re not just innovating; we’re pioneering a new era of trust and efficiency in data management,” says Ellen.

Would you like to be interviewed for the podcast?

The ubloquity podcast is designed to help demystify how blockchain technology is being operationalised in the real world.

If you'd like to be featured or have an idea for an episode don't hesitate to get in touch with Dom.

Alan Lowry is the CEO at ESF - a serial entrepreneur and award winning director, he is also an expert in overseas trade and export sales. 

He is an export champion for the Department of Business and Trade, and Chair of Federation of Small Businesses in Northern Ireland.

Having worked and travelled all over the world, he is now based in Northern Ireland - a hot bed for innovation.

Alan never rests on his laurels, and is always interested in how to push things forward. In the street furniture sector he was one of the first to actively target the big theme parks like SeaWorld. A few years ago one of the biggest issues with the Parks was the fact that kids didn't want to stay all day because their cell phones or their mobile phones died. So he started chatting to them about how he could come up with a solar powered device that would allow people to charge their phone in the park without them having to introduce any energy, which meant that was also movable, and it would then keep the customers in the park longer and therefore increase their food and beverage and their merchandise sales. 

They've ended up exporting the idea to 30 countries around the world since then, and are on to generation three with USB phone charging, LED lighting, and SIM card enabled Wi Fi from the bench so that they can extend the Wi Fi signal.

And I haven't even mentioned his collaboration with The Wombles! Yes, that's right. Listen to find out more. 

Would you like to be interviewed for the podcast?

The ubloquity podcast is designed to help demystify how blockchain technology is being operationalised in the real world.

If you'd like to be featured or have an idea for an episode don't hesitate to get in touch with Dom.

Alex is an internationally experienced CTO/CPTO leading diverse global technology teams for major companies. He has led seven technology transformations, achieving top quartile performance and accelerating profitable growth. 

Starting in software development, Alex rose to head of Retail Banking technology at a leading UK internet startup bank. He later co-founded an eCommerce consultancy and led iconic CTO interim roles for 8 years. 

He transformed Sainsbury’s online platform as eCommerce IT Director, and later led the digital transformation at Barclays Retail Bank in London as Multichannel IT Director.

In 2012, Alex joined Walmart Global eCommerce technology in California as the multichannel technology director. He led the world’s 2nd largest grocery home shopping platform, the UK's fastest-growing fashion platform, and pioneered groundbreaking ‘click-and-collect’ initiatives. It was here that our paths first crossed. 

Since then he's also had senior roles at YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP in Italy and Emirates Group - where he was global CIO and global CTO respectively,  overseeing the strategy and transformation of a 2,500-strong team to modernise the technology landscape, enabling business growth and innovation.

Alex is now on a mission to unlock the potential of product & tech teams by harnessing the power of data and AI. 

"We’re infusing data and AI to assess and improve teams’ productivity index, enabling efficient and predictable delivery outcomes, helping our clients achieve their digital transformation goals faster. "

Alex feels in some ways, over the last decade or so, he's been trying to solve the same challenges, but in different roles with different companies. And now he wants to have the opportunity to figure out how to solve this for every company, in every industry, so that they can measure the productivity of the tech teams, but can also improve it. 

The second part of this is that he wants to really leverage the same platform, and his experience to create a new kind of tech community, bionic teams where productivity levels are off the charts. And he thinks technologies such as generative AI and blockchain are key to solving this.

Alex lends his expertise to startups, guiding them in product development best practices and the innovation applications of cutting-edge generative AI. 

Alex holds a Statistics degree from University College London and an MBA.

Would you like to be interviewed for the podcast?

The ubloquity podcast is designed to help demystify how blockchain technology is being operationalised in the real world.

If you'd like to be featured or have an idea for an episode don't hesitate to get in touch with Dom.