Please describe your proposed solution.
Where are we now with our Cannabis Grading Application:
Pre-blockchain iOS mobile app. Field tested and needed blockchain connection, admin panel, and data integration for automatic appraisal.
STEP 1 - Capture Inventory Data
STEP 2 - Grade attributes based on ICHS 100-point scale
STEP 3 - Record Product Defects
STEP 4 - View generated appraisal information
STEP 5 - Access our unique Certificate of Grade & Appraisal Report
What is a Certificate of Grade (COG)? View interactive (+) Certificate
Grading & Agriculture
The practice of grading agricultural commodities ensures the farmer's to adopt the quality specifications for their products, which in turn avoid them being exploited from the traders and obtaining good price for the produce. Since the graded products possess fixed standards there is no scope for cheating consumers. Grading is a standard and foundation in all other global agricultural crops, and is not yet a common practice in the cannabis industry. Our Grading Application solves that.
The Industry
There are four main types of actors in the cannabis and hemp trading industry.
- Sellers (producers, ie growers, or extractors) of cannabis. Mostly small / medium sized licensed companies growing and or extracting cannabis, domiciled in single states in the US (due to issues with federal regulation), Canada, Europe and a few other countries. Their goal is to sell the largest volume of their products at the highest competitive prices. To do so, they must be able to demonstrate the quality of material they offer.
- Buyers of cannabis. All types of buyers want to understand the quality of the product they are buying through grading and quality verification avoiding counterfeit / or product mixed with inferior product that is delivered. Whether they are
- wholesalers, distributors, retail outlets or
- large buyers (manufacturers, extractors, or processors) buying bulk for processing into various different forms of THC (branded joints, medicinals, edibles, supplements etc.),
- Independent businesses grading cannabis. To be efficient and grade at scale, the grading industry needs a common language to define quality, standards for grading and a tool set that allows them to efficiently and effectively grade cannabis material in the field, at scale.
- Independent Marketplaces and Brokers. Marketplaces like Tamerlane, prefer to represent graded cannabis and hemp material because over the past seven years and 1000’s of transactions 3rd party quality verified material sells faster, with 90% less returns, and upto 60% increased value. Tamerlane Marketplace uses grading to its advantage. This service needs to be available to all buyers and sellers on the open market. Doing so will scale trade, and the industry.
The ICHS approved Big Tree grading system creates business opportunities for independent graders using a standardized grading scheme to assign grades to individual flower lots (+/-5 - 50 pounds in weight).
User Stories
- Licensed cannabis operators, producing cannabis, have inventory to sell, quantity and quality varying in time (daily/weekly/monthly). They need ways to communicate the quality of product on offer.
- Buyers have few industry standards by which they can communicate and no common language to describe cannabis quality.
- Grading is a difficult process which must be performed in the field at the source of the cannabis products. Until this BigTree grading app, the process involved manual data entry back in the office, to produce paper based grading certificates, easily counterfeited or manipulated. A process that was subject to data manipulation at many points.
System Design
All three user types use mobile and/or web apps to interact with the Grading process of producing International Cannabis & Hemp Standard (ICHS) recognized quality verified certificates on a lot by lot basis.
- Producers: Select Independent grading specialists to record information about every lot of product that is ready to be offered for sale.
- Independent Graders: Visit the farms, inspect the plants, document conditions with standard format color photographs, establish scores according to predefined, commonly understood metrics and upload the data to the grading system - while still in the field. Attach a grade including metadata (details of grading, what grading system was used, who did the grading) to the lot and record it on the blockchain.
- Producers receive a transaction ID that uniquely identifies the lot. This ID can be turned into a QR code and printed on the packaging for consumers to scan as a Quality Verification.
- Buyers: Use the transaction ID to look up producer & grader data. Helping them make purchasing and pricing decisions.
All the interactions are realized using Cardano native tokens.
The following components are needed:
- Indexing service - provides info about the grades, lots & NFTs that have been recorded on the chain
- Permissions service - manages permissions, who is allowed to enter data, etc.
- Apps for the three user types will be web apps (including mobile versions for field grading.)
Tokenized Quality Verified Product Sheets
- Optional Tokenized Quality Verified Product Sheets
- Cardano Native Tokens (CNFT’s) verify the authenticity of the ICHS certificate for the product listed
- Members are able to “export” ICHS certificates as a Cardano Native Token (CNFT represented by a QR code) on websites or collaborating blockchains (a technology dependent feature).
Why is a Grading Application needed?
- Growers need to bring visibility to their products.
- The industry is having a difficult time valuing and differentiating products.
- Everyone is demanding better data: consumers, the regulators, the researchers.
- Trust in this easily counterfeited, high value product category is low.
- Regulators have an interest in the product quality (THC content).
- No one else does this at this time.
- Big Tree Grading App provides a standardized way to capture meaningful product data at the source.
- Distributors and listing agents can manage the quality of their clients’ inventory.
Three ways to Grade
The Big Tree Grading App has an opportunity to become the “Uber” of Cannabis data documentation, enabling the smallest producers to document their product in a standardized manner.
The application can be accessed by:
- Online Form hosted for CLS member clients
- Backend API with licensed access by CLS members from their own IT systems
- Use of the grading app by 3rd party ICHS trained, independent grading specialists.
All Quality Verification certificates (QVC) produced using the Big Tree system will be registered on the Cardano blockchain.
- Big Tree grading certificates produced by independent grading specialists will be registered and identified as ICHS compliant certificates.
- Big Tree certificates created by producer members will be identified as Unverified Certificates (UVC).
Only certificates produced by 3rd party independent grading specialists will be identified as Quality Verified grading certificates.
Big Tree welcomes the development of other tools and integration of our data with other systems. More demand for data is what brings exponential growth opportunities for our data.
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
The challenge establishes the need for proposals with these qualities.
“Cardano needs a thriving ecosystem of different Dapps, products and integrations for the community to use that increasingly become the better alternatives over current centralized providers.
The more interesting and useful the products and integrations are that can be built in the ecosystem the more reasons people have to interact with the Cardano blockchain that can help further drive more adoption, feedback, growth and even more innovations.“
It is doubtless that the Big Tree Grading app and associated listing service and marketplace will be among the most interesting and useful products for a broad range of age groups & particularly interesting to many Cardano and other cryptocurrency community members - globally!
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
Cost overruns : A risk that all projects face. In the case of Aperon group of companies, a well established, revenue generating company, we have the ability to supplement catalyst funding owing to cost overruns.
Technology complications : As of the time of submitting this proposal, the Cardano protocol is ready to launch a new version “Vasil” which seems to have all the features that are required for a listing service and simple market place. Contracting with highly experienced Haskell devs, experienced in Plutus, and past experience with stable coins and IOG suggests that unexpected technology complications can be resolved.
Unavailability of Key Persons : Any juristic person (registered company) faces the risk of losing a Key Person. IN the case of Aperon, as the founder, the CEO is unlikely to leave. In the case of unexpected events, within the corporate realm, the company has a succession plan for key persons. In as much as blockchain development is contracted to an individual, system architecture and specifications will be the earliest deliverables. Allowing another dev to continue the work, in case of unavailability. Worst case would be delay in delivering while we found a suitably qualified replacement developer.
Market Uptake : Many Catalyst proposers are creating innovative, new products and services for which actual market demand has not been demonstrated. New systems always face the risk that market demand would not be as great as required to be sustainable. In the case of a commodity listing service, Aperon is developing the listing service in response to the demands of hundreds of customers built around our 7 years of experience in the legal cannabis market..
Inadequate Business experience : Many Catalyst proposers building new products and services within a technology ecosystem do not have business experience. Start-ups often find success depends on non-technical issues such as HR, marketing, accounting, regulatory compliance, banking relationships and others. With 25 years experience in the global commodities environments, Aperon’s systems, procedures, network of customers and service suppliers prepares us for expanding our business in this dimension.