About veriTAG and veriHUB: a veri clever idea around the Singapore to China food chain
At first glance, veriTAG may seem like a basic tagging technology using QR codes. On deeper understanding, it is a patented innovation and clever use of dual QR tagging coupled with an application on the cloud to authenticate a product or component.
Jason Lim, the founder of veriTAG designed this to solve a real problem when he was running a maintenance company servicing equipment for semiconductor companies in China. Some of their customers were replacing their genuine components with fakes to claim warranties. Although it was then a NFC (near field communications) based tag, the same concept was modified using inexpensive QR codes – and easily readable by the ubiquitous mobile phone - for consumer products. This gave rise to veriTAG and then veriHUB.
Jason then recognized the need for food safety in China and their authentication to source; what he calls F2C: the visibility and transparency from Factory-to-Consumer. He also spotted increasing effluence and overseas influence with the well-travelled and widely-read Chinese; and hence the opportunity for offering exotic foreign (processed) food to “a billion” Chinese. He also recognized the complexities of importing even processed food into China: import licences, product labelling, customs requirements, excise and duties not to mention the logistic supply chain and the quintessential marketing and distribution to the end Chinese consumer. For a SME (small medium enterprise) food manufacturer or trader in Singapore, exporting to China is more than daunting and given their limited capabilities and resources, rather prohibitive. VeriHUB was then contemplated to not solve these complexities but provide the needed economies of scale, thus palatable to all.
Jason started his proposition with his veriTAG solution to label and authenticate his client merchants’ products. Through his experience and contacts in China, he then mapped out the value chain and processes needed to import food into China, the logistics supply chain, including his own warehouse in Wuxi; and instead of attempting to set up his own eCommerce in China, leveraging on the prevalent platforms such as taobao and tmall, and potentially jd.
Using his network in Singapore, he has garnered his pioneer group of food merchants with items which have the potential demand – and becoming a fad - in China. They include Singaporean styled coffee (we call kopi O), laksa paste, kaya spread and even international foodstuff like upmarket Sri Lankan tea, Greek olive oil and Australian barista coffee.
Acknowledging the need to introduce these interesting foods to the Chinese consumers, Jason and veriHUB together with his merchants, participated in food expos in China where they, for example, showed how Chengdu citizens and local trade prospects with their spicy taste buds can discover a new affinity to their favourite instant noodles quick-boiled with Singapore laksa paste. He and his team through the help of International Enterprise (IE) Singapore (Singapore’s international trade agency which has international offices including China cities) and the Singaporean residents/businesses in China, are also offering food tastings and sampling of their merchants’ fare in restaurants and supermarkets.
The above is based on the concept of O2O or offline to online. There are also plans to do marketing online such as via food bloggers and other viral type reviews. The brick and mortar element of the veriHUB model adds tangible value to this internet startup.
On top of all that, veriHUB is also deploying veriTAG to ensure that every single of his merchants’ products can be authenticated right down to the product as a unique item traceable to the source and other information. Once the second QR code is peeled off and scanned, it is flagged as sold or assumed used. The same solution can also be used for the merchants and their distributors to track-and-trace and understand their product movements and customer engagements e.g. loyalty programmes. With veriHUB’s backend application system, the merchants can also monitor their products’ sales and reconcile accounts. There are elements of a CRM (customer relationship management) and ERP (enterprise resource planning) on a cloud for veriHUB and their merchants.
Another interesting aspect of veriHUB is that should the merchants wish – and that is the planned philosophy – to involve distributors or brick-and-mortar retail to extend their reach in China, they can and still use the same veriHUB platform to order. In the pipeline is also veri$hopS: an app for the various players in the food chain (pun intended) to interact with veriHUB.
veriHUB’s business model is also very appealing all-round. There is a per-product sign-up fee for merchants to be on the platform and the other costs are variable and optional: the physical tags and tagging/labelling are charged per piece and each product sold has a small percentage commission to veriHUB (and in turn the eCommerce platforms). The actual costs of shipping, logistics, taxes and marketing are charged accordingly but again, the merchants will leverage of veriHUB’s economies of scale, cost efficiencies and managed coordination with these third party providers.
In a nutshell, a small and niche food manufacturer in Singapore now has a simple platform to launch their offerings in the huge and daunting market of China. Likewise, the discerning Chinese citizen now has access to an interesting food item he or she has tasted in Singapore or recommended by a family, friend or social media. VeriHUB has reduced the complexities and provided the reach for such merchants and their newfound Chinese customers; and a very compelling and viable business potential for veriTAG the company.
Jason intends to register a new company veriHUB in China as a subsidiary of veriTAG. It will be aptly named in Chinese wei lv de (维律德); pronounced the same as in English and literally (and cleverly) translated to uphold, law/legal and moral values.
Beyond this pilot group of merchants, the plan is to increase their product offerings and add other merchants. The business can expand exponentially without the need for corresponding scaling up of resources and costs for veriTAG.
Another concept in the works is veriHUB-in-box: repeating the veriHUB pilot success en bloc with another country: say Singapore products to India; or another country, say new group of Korean products to China. The en bloc refers to not having to reinvent the initial veriHUB pilot project sequentially but with the experience and know-how, short-circuiting to rapid implementation as a separate instances of the software and platform.
Backtracking to the original veriTAG concept, Jason is also contemplating if the tagging and authentication per se can be marketed as a solution to say, multinational companies (MNC) like Nestle or Diageo (alcoholic beverages) to tag and verify their numerous consumer products globally or large markets to address food safety and counterfeit concerns. For MNCs with high value products requiring strict safety regimes such as aircraft manufacturers or MRO (maintenance, repair and operations), veriTAG can be used too in the original way veriTAG was mooted. Finally, testing and inspection majors such as Societe Generale Surveillance (SGS) and Bureau Veritas could apply veriTAG for their trusted third party services for their global clients.
Jason and his small team of colleagues have grown from being computer technologists to eCommerce practitioners and food aficionados. Not too long ago, Jason was a guest speaker at food show and his topic was: “Bird’s Nest: Real Fake and Fake Real.” They have worked very hard with very little pay in the last three years to conjure up and pursue their dream. One day when the Sichuanese claim that laksa was invented in Chengdu or a kopi O shop in Wuxi is as crowded as Starbucks next door, Jason would have realized that vision; and made his merchants “veri” successful too.
