TruTrace and Laava Partner for Blockchain-Supported Traceability

TruTrace Technologies, a Canadian developer of a fully-integrated blockchain platform, has entered into a strategic partnership with Australian technology company Laava to drive product provenance and traceability.

TruTrace Technologies’ platform TruTrace™ is a cloud-based blockchain software that connects quality control and inventory management, enabling companies in the legal cannabis, food, pharmaceutical and agriscience sectors to track products at every testing point throughout their lifecycle, from manufacture to sale. It has two offerings: TruTrace SaaS for ‘traditional’ industries, and StrainSecure™ SaaS for the cannabis industry.

Laava, meanwhile, describes itself as ‘bringing secure, scannable, product authentication technology to the market’. Together with Australia’s leading scientific research institution CSIRO, it is the developer of the patented Laava Smart Fingerprint®, which uses patented optical technology to create randomly-generated codes that are captured and stored on a secure server (the company taking its name from the organic and unpredictable nature of a lava flow, which is mirrored in its technology).

The development of the Smart Fingerprint was in response to what the company sees as the drawbacks of QR codes. In particular, it states, the latter were designed for automation, but never for authentication. And as the data is directly encoded, they are exposed and vulnerable to malicious attacks, in particular spoofing (whereby counterfeiters create QR codes online easily and instantaneously, then put them on fake products with a fake claim of authenticity, with consumers having no way of identifying whether the QR code they are scanning is legitimate or not).

According to Laava, every Smart Fingerprint is a uniquely generated image, with the data removed from the code and turned into a unique scannable mark, or optical fingerprint. The Laava ecosystem operates securely in the cloud. Only Laava customers can generate Smart Fingerprints, and only the Laava scanner can read them. And because every scan is recorded and tracked, the technology lends itself very well to blockchain.

Since their launch in 2019, more than five million of these Smart Fingerprints, have been deployed around the world on products ranging from cherries to wine, PPE, documents and NFTs.

Under the agreement, both parties will pursue opportunities to promote the individual products, services, and offerings of the other to appropriate customers, partners, and other commercial contacts.

‘Over the past several months we have seen significant stress within the global supply chain and with these significant delays and challenges it has become imperative more now than ever to ensure that products are safe and consistent,’ said Robert Galarza, CEO of TruTrace. ‘Our strategic partnership helps fill many of the gaps by combining the best features of our software platform with patented, next generation, optical fingerprint technology which serves as ‘on package’ authentication to provide a unique customer experience driven by blockchain, traceability and testing.’