Optifarm Smart

Display of cart
Display of purchase order list
Merchant UI control panel
Display of product detail
Display of product list

Inspiration

COVID-19 crisis showed to all of us, that logistic chains are not as resilient as we thought they were. Before, when you needed food, you would probably just go down to your local supermarket, as so many others. Things changed. Some of the shelves in your favorite grocery store might be empty next week, freedom of your movement is restricted and grocery shopping suddenly represents a health risk.

Our inspiration was to enable one click order of local fresh products from multiple local farmers with optimized home delivery. Capability would increase health safety (decreased social contacts), support local economy (local farmers would sell products in current HEURECA lock-down) and food self-sufficiency (short food supply chains).

Our vision is that Optifarm Smart provides complete self-sufficient local food supply/demand ecosystem in the "new normal" world in each EU member country.

What it does

Optifarm Smart supports social distancing and prevents spread of the COVID-19 disease.

Optifarm Smart is enabler for food self-sufficiency supported with supply from strong backbone of farmers, fueled with on-line purchases and door-to-door delivery (with additional introduction of route optimization in 2020/Q2, based on the agreed business parntership as a result of EUvsVirus participation).

Optifarm Smart offers pick-up of ordered products at a local retailer or home delivery through delivery partners (with additional introduction of zero touch delivery with smart boxes in 2020/Q3, based on the agreed business parntership as a result of EUvsVirus participation).

How we built it

Optifarm Smart is built using modern enterprise architecture:

java backend business logic exposed via REST interfaces,
multiple user channels: react-native mobile channel (react web channel on the roadmap),
AWS environment: provides cloud based solution and enables on-demand scalablity;

Goals we had for EUvsVirus hackaton were to test our MVP assumptions and with help of mentors, design roadmap for the next 6 months that would enable optimal short-term product development. We have identified four main topics:

route optimization for logistics optimization,
smart boxes for zero touch delivery,
gamification used in user journey,
blockchain used for loyalty system;

After discussions with several skill mentors and internal discussions we have identified that lack of route optimization (solved with route optimization) and inefficient order take-over process (solved with smart boxes) represent biggest hurdles in grocery on-line sales adoption. We have identified two potential partners among EUvsVirus participants (OmniOpti for route optimization, Zero Contact for smart boxes) and agreed with their representatives that we will sign Letter-of-Intent. Because of this agreement we will be able to schedule support for route optimization integration in 2020/Q2 and smart box integration in 2020/Q3. Both capabilities will give Optifarm edge compared to our competitors.

Challenges we ran into

Optimization of delivery logistics in retail food logistics.
Challenging business model with multiple (traditional) stakeholders.
Local warehouse scalability.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Optifarm Smart offers alternative "new normal" retail model that will decrease people interactions and prevent spread of the COVID-19 disease.

What we learned

We have met a number of enthusiastic people, potential partners and learned that weekends are great for hacking! With all the energy on the event, that will result in great solutions, we are certain, that EU will be just fine.

The solution’s impact to the crisis

Optifarm Smart supports social distancing and prevents spread of the COVID-19 disease,
Optifarm Smart supports local economy by providing farmers additional sales channel during existing crisis in HORECA sector,
Optifarm Smart enables increase of food self-sufficiency for individual member state;

The value of your solution(s) after the crisis

Currently on-line sales for existing annual EU grocery market amounting 2.000 BN EUR is still small (5% or less for individual member states). On-line EU grocery sales CAGR is more than 20% in some member states. This gives clear indication, that on-line grocery sales will grow in the future and that Optifarm Smart could become part of the "new normal" retail market.

What's next for Optifarm Smart / The necessities in order to continue the project

We will continue with Optifarm Smart development organically using available resources. Additional funding would enable us faster execution of development roadmap and faster go-to-market execution:

Development Roadmap: Route Optimization (2020/Q2)
Development Roadmap: SmartBox Delivery Support (2020/Q3)
Go-To-Market: International Pilots in 3 EU member countries (2020/Q4)