Let's Talk Farm to Fork
Let's Talk Farm to Fork
Sascha Rust from Two Hands
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In this episode of "Let's Talk Farm to Fork", we're joined by Sascha Rust from Two Hands, who we will be talking to about how their transparent marketplace system is helping reduce resource waste and influence sustainable seafood production.
https://www.2hs.info/
Welcome to let's talk farm to fork, the PostHarvest podcast that interviews people, making an impact in the fresh produce sector. We'll take a deep dive into what they do and find out how they're helping to reduce the amount of food lost or wasted along the farm to fork journey. But before we get started, did you know that according to the UN's food and agriculture organisation, around 45% of the world's fruits and vegetables go to waste each year? If you would like to learn more about how you can practically play your part in maximising fruit and vegetable supplies, whether you're a part of the industry or simply a consumer visit PostHarvest.Com and try out their free online course library today. Now time for your host Mitchell Denton.
Mitchell DentonHello and welcome to "Let's Talk Farm to Fork", the PostHarvest podcast that interviews people of interest across the food supply chain. Today on our show, I'm joined by a Sasha Rust from Two Hands, who I'll be talking to about how that transparent marketplace system is helping reduce resource waste and influence sustainable seafood production. So with no further delays, let's get started. Good morning Sascha, how are you?
Sascha RustI'm good Mitch, I'm good. Thanks for having me here.
Mitchell DentonBefore we get into it, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do and maybe a fun fact about yourself that most people don't know.
Sascha RustYeah, sure. No worries. Look, I guess, uh, first and foremost, I guess I'm a little bit, you know, food and agri-obsessed. I spent about 10 to 12 years working as a chef, after having a very luxurious upbringing around, you know, a hobby farm and parents that only bought organic food and all that kind of thing. You know, making pasta at home, after school, that kind of thing. So I was pretty lucky in that sense. You know, that obviously, you know, fell into me being a chef, as I said, and then opened a few restaurants here in Melbourne where I currently live. But, these days I have a bit of an overinflated title of Food Systems Architect, working at a startup called Two Hands. And that was sort of a bit of a lead on from few years in the conservation space, uh, working on seafood supply chains, especially for the food industry and things like that. So, my career has kind of jumped around a little bit around the food system, but, um, it's always been focused on that final point of you know, awesome food for people to eat and enjoy, right? Fun facts. Geez. Where do you start, right? I mean, it's probably hardly a unique fact to me, but you know, I've got a bit of a noodle soup obsession. Uh, there's this one trip. Uh, where I went to Japan a number of years ago now. I mean, COVID obviously, um, and I've sort of always dubbed that as Ramen Day. Um, there was a day where I sort of managed to fit in, I think three, I think it might've been four if you consider the like 4:00 AM Ramen in there as well. So just like every meal was Ramen. And so ever since it's been, um, you know, dubbed as Ramen Day. I recently found out actually that a good friend of mine has the exact same story and we were telling each other that story pretty much at the same time at the pub. And I'm just like, "Yep. That's why we're friends".
Mitchell DentonThat's awesome. I'm more of a, uh, Udon person, myself.
Sascha RustNice.
Mitchell DentonBut I, I love a good noodle soup.
Sascha RustLook, I can be partial to Udon, right? It's all good.
Mitchell DentonIt's true. It's true. On that note, let's talk farm to fork. So, would you mind telling us about how Two Hands works and how the idea first came about to develop a marketplace ecosystem that favours primary producers?
Sascha RustYeah, absolutely look, I mean, at a really high level. Two Hands is really about a food system rebuild. I've started talking about it as the development of both a digital supply chain and a physical supply chain in tandem. So, it's that tension point between the digital and the physical where we really play. So fundamentally what we're doing is we're building a direct sales channel from primary producer through to customer, be that a chef restaurant, food retailer or whatever that might be, um, stripping out middlemen where they're no longer required. Um, an interesting thing about the supply chain is that, you know, we have all of these layers of product handlers or logistics agents or marketplaces or things like that, that have kind of come into play out of necessity in the past, because people have needed that to have some support in, warehousing or inventory management or sales or whatever that might've been. But these days technology can do all of that. And so, you know, the 30 to 40% of margin that exists in a lot of food supply chains, is actually not really required so that money can be better distributed. So look, ultimately what it will look like in the future is as I said, primary producers will be able to sort of own their own markets. And sell directly to their customers and the supply chain will act in a really decentralised manner, um, through this marketplace mechanism whereby processes and value adders and things like that work as service providers, not stock owners, thereby sort of making it more efficient, more streamline. And of course, the really critical part is that implementation of Blockchain for traceability aspects. So, you know, you were really getting that harvest data straight through to the customer in a really digestible way to give you that certainty of source and provenance.
Mitchell DentonMm. Hmm. Oh, that's great. Is there a reason why Two Hands is focused particularly on tracking and tracing seafood?
Sascha RustThe seafood part of what we're doing is really where we're at today. Um, and certainly it's not gonna be where we're going. Um, certainly not where we're only going to be in the future. Prior to my work with, with Two Hands, I was working in the conservation space for a number of years, uh, I developed, a now national program that's basically a seafood sustainability guide targeted at the food industry, trying to get the food industry to change their behaviour and source more carefully and whatnot. And so it was really about sort of giving that sector the tools to make better choices. Now through that work, where we effectively were giving a traffic light ranking to the majority of species that you see on market. And we were delving into the supply chains and fisheries management and doing all of that work to sort of determine what is, and isn't sustainable by a really robust kind of peer reviewed criteria, um, it became very clear sort of the extent of the traceability problem in seafood is, is, is pretty incredible. Um, the way, a huge amount of it is done around the world and Australia doesn't escape that is, is really using for some fairly archaic systems, um, paper-based systems often. Um, so, you know, you're talking literally a handwritten note stuck onto a tub, often sitting on the ice, getting wet. And you can imagine how a piece of paper sitting on ice over, you know, a 36 hour journey holds up, right? And then that product can end up in markets being aggregated, all kinds of things go on in that space, you know, not, not to mention, um, some fairly longstanding um, and this is a bit of a controversial topic, but longstanding archaic power structures that exist in that sector. And so all of that means that traceability and seafood has been very, very hard. And so it's sort of made sense. A) I knew the sector, but B) the problem was the biggest.
Mitchell DentonOkay, so seafood is obviously a huge problem area but expanding into some of the other food categories, what's that gonna look like moving forward?
Sascha RustYeah, look, I mean, no sector escapes some of these issues and it can always be done better, right? So, you know, we're already working in beef both in the US and Australia. And, you know, that's a whole different system solution, right? There's different supply chain partners, there's different processes, there's different methodologies, there's different power structures, different, you know, organisations working in that space. And so every product category has its own challenges. But, you know, we're also about to start working in poultry and other land proteins in Australia as well. Fundamentally the idea of building a digital and physical collaborative sort of decentralised platform, I don't know, they're all sort of big buzzwords, but fundamentally that concept can be taken anywhere. But we need to do it in a way that is, is really market appropriate, right? Um, this is something that I was discussing with someone the other day about another platform in the UK that was doing similar work to ours. And, they found themselves in a position where their main market were chefs and then on their platform they had sort of a smattering of products, you know, like one butter, a beef products and seafood products and a couple of vegetable products that were all traced back to farm and, you know, you know, super legitimate and everything that we want to see, but it wasn't actually a functional platform from a consumer perspective, from a market perspective. So in that way, we're taking a slightly more reserved and I guess, strategic approach to how we roll this out.
Mitchell DentonOkay. Okay. You were mentioning blockchain before I find a lot of people when you're talking about blockchain, it just, straight over their head, they're just like, "What are you talking about?" Would you be able to explain as best as possible to the listeners, how Two Hands is using blockchain technology to help reduce the environmental impact of Australia's oceans?
Sascha RustI can certainly explain how we're using blockchain. Can I explain blockchain? Nobody can.
Mitchell DentonYeah. Yeah.
Sascha RustYeah, look. Absolutely. I mean, I started touching on it earlier, right? I'll try maybe using some examples. Uh, I mean, fisheries are sort of a highly complex thing, right? And fisheries management systems are also highly complex by nature. Uh, they're also a human construct, right? We're applying a management system over a biological natural space. Uh, and therefore it's sort of inevitable that these management systems sort of struggle a little bit to handle the diversity and the population variances and all of those things that matter for a sustainable ecosystem or fishery or whatever you want to call it at the micro level. The other thing to keep mind is that the market doesn't actually currently differentiate between a species fished from two distinct populations in similar locations that may have completely different health. And so at a really good example of that would be something like Abalone where Abalone populations can be entirely located around a particular reef or very micro level region, right? So what will often happen is those Abalone will be fished in various regions and then aggregated and called Victorian Abalone. Um, and that's about as good as traceability is today. And so that means that you can fish out a whole population of Abalone, quite realistically. And yet we could consider the Victorian overall Abalone stocks to be very healthy, but you've wiped out a population. Um, so bring that back to blockchain, the important thing to recognise about blockchain is that the data that goes in is the data you get out and that's fundamentally how it works. So when you are able to bring in information like the GPS locations of where something was harvested, the weight of that product, um, the time it was harvested, even, you know, consider in the future maybe an image of that product could be loaded to the blockchain. That means that all of that data can then be attached to a physical tag or some method of attaching it to that product, which then means that that product can be verified at the end of the supply chain. Um, whether it be just by looking at the data and weighing the product at the end of the supply chain and matching that with the product that went into the supply chain, or as I mentioned, this is something that is totally in the future but why couldn't that be image recognition, right? And so there's flaws in that and you know, many people listening to this might go, yeah, but blockchain is not perfect because again if the data is wrong going in, that means the data's wrong going out. And yes, that's all true, so it's up to us. And this is where I was talking earlier about that physical and digital kind of interplay. Like it's really important that you get that collaboration and you build those, build that relationship in a really robust way.
Mitchell DentonYeah, that's great. And Two Hands are using a QR code system for that, is that correct?
Sascha RustAt current, we're using a QR code system, that's right. Um, we've developed a few different methodologies to, to apply that, um, horn tags for lobsters, stickers for aggregated boxes, which is obviously not particularly robust, but obviously a lot, a lot of investment in R and D is going into that space. I mean, to bring it back to the real question there around, why does this matter for sustainability? Well, it's really about consumer choice, right? So, um, that work that I was talking about earlier, where you can provide all the guidance you want through a really robust certification scheme, like MSC or a guidance scheme, like the good fish program that I ran. And so a consumer can go, "Yes, I'm making a sustainable choice because I'm buying a green listed piece of seafood". But if that product doesn't have that traceability intact with a really robust system like blockchain, then that consumer choice is actually meaningless because that could be a fraudulent piece of seafood or whatever you want to call it. So therefore you're not actually having the impact on the ecosystem that you think you are as a consumer.
Mitchell DentonYeah. Speaking of consumer choice, do you think there's been a noticeable shift in attitude and intentionality towards the sustainable sourcing of food from consumers and even the industry?
Sascha RustYeah, I think about this a lot as you can imagine. Um, look there's definitely been a slow shift in the zeitgeists, yep, for sure. Um, but I think the understanding of the issue varies so significantly that I don't think we're yet having the impact that we need to be having. And what I mean by that is the understanding of what sustainability even means in a food system. And the reason I say that is because industries have a natural bias to the economics of what they're doing. So they're always going to prefer the subset of information that allows, you know, a greater profit or a greater yield or something like that. And that balance against sustainability is always going to be skewed a little bit to what is the most profitable version of the sustainable option. Um, and so while consumers are starting to demand it, they're being fed information from so many different sources, governments, industry conservationists like myself, and we all have a different take on what we want, right? And so we're all putting out different messaging. So like, should we really be surprised that everybody's bloody confused, right? Like, you know, who do you listen to? It's such a melange of content coming your way. Um, we don't really yet have the tools to differentiate in a really digestive way with a really pure data driven fact, you know, uh, what is sustainable and what isn't? And I suppose it's that approach that I've sort of been taken this past few years with both the work I was doing in conservation and now with, with Two Hands, it's really about going, you know, "This is sustainable because of this third party verification, this blockchain, you know, verification, blah, blah, blah, blah", give the consumer tools, then create them in a really make them digestible, right? Like at the end of the day, you're walking down the supermarket aisle, you don't want to know, the amount of carbon that's being produced at a you know, a confusing kind of like numeric value out of a beef production, right? Like, you just want to know yes or no, basically. So how do we, how do we distill the facts into that level of decision-making?
Mitchell DentonYeah, absolutely. Following on this thread has COVID had any influence over increasing consumer desire for full transparency and traceability of food products?
Sascha RustLook, I certainly noticed a bit of a, a shift in people's sense of the importance of that to them. And I don't know if that's, you know, because people had a lot more time to think they sat back and they sorta just went "Wow, you know, what's actually important to me?" I've had a number of chefs come to me, a lot of friends or people in my network that over the last sort of year and a half had just picked up the phone and the conversation has been like, "Ah, you know, I really love what you've been doing", which is obviously super humbling. But then it's, then it very quickly goes into, "I just really want to do something for me, you know, I just really want to, you know, all of this is made me think and I just want to do better". "Like, you know, I think so like strung, like tied to this business or tied to this methodology or tied to how busy I was and I haven't had the chance to do things right", right? So I've had a lot of those kinds of conversations. Um, and that's why I say, you know, maybe people had a bit more time to think. Um. I guess the other part of that is, I mean, the origin story of COVID, right? Like, wet markets in China, I think that certainly put a bit of fear into certain sectors of society, whether or not, you know, where we end up as far as believing that, or it being fact or not who knows, but it certainly has affected some people in China, for instance, where Two Hands does a little bit of work. You know, the narrative continues to be that frozen imports are a high risk thing. We effectively stopped exporting or importing into China, um, completely during COVID, because it just became so hard to do it due to government led fear about the risk of COVID. And so I think as much as it's still affecting a lot of us, you know, and I, I guess I do see the COVID argument sort of falling into the background a little bit. I mean, most of us kind of have just gotten on with our lives. Those of us who haven't been severely effected, I suppose. Um, and other broader shifts in a desire for a more sustainable life though, I think are certainly continuing or bubbling along. And it's those, I guess, that we now need to capture and, you know, make the most of.
Mitchell DentonYeah, absolutely. What, what would you say is the biggest systemic challenge the food industry is up against currently?
Sascha RustGreat question. Is there one? I don't know, I mean the food system as a system itself is the systemic challenge, right? If you think about the perceived pressure for growth to feed the world, right? That's, that's huge. Then you balance that against what you guys at PostHarvest really know better than anyone, is that we throw out almost 50% of what we produce sometimes. So, so how true is that perceived pressure for growth, right? If we're throwing 50% of the calories that we're producing. Um, you know, there's a growing demand for protein in the rising middle class, around the world. Um, driven by this idea that a protein fuelled diet is the most healthy one that we need and then there's an unequal distribution of nutrient-rich food to wealthy regions. And so there's that, that tension as well. The idea that local food systems can't support local communities and long supply chains and export is such a critical piece of the puzzle. This one sort of bugs me the most, I suppose. Um, you know, I can't help think that it's often an excuse to make a lot of money exporting and importing high value products. Not actually feeding regions of the world that actually need that commodity product or need those calories the most. So, you know, I don't know if I can nail one of those down. Um, I think, you know, it is just a systemic challenge, right? And, and as with all system challenges, they've got many leavers and we need many people to kind of collaborate, to get, to get through them.
Mitchell DentonYeah, Yeah. So then what's the vision of the future that two hands is working towards and what challenges lay ahead?
Sascha RustYeah, look, um, fundamentally we want to decentralise the food supply chain. We want to produce it to, you know, of whatever scale. It doesn't matter if they're your local farm or whether they're, you know, a large scale fishery, whatever it happens to be, we want them to have access and own their own market. Through our marketplace ecosystem and our supply chain services, you know, we want processes, logistics, agents, all of those people to, um, be a service to those primary producers so that the power falls back into the hands of primary producers that can earn a little bit more money they can invest in sustainable management. Um, and all of those things that we want to see. So, you know, that's, that's fundamentally the vision. We want that recognition of the primary producer back. There's such a disconnect, right? Like, you know, this is that really romantic commentary that you hear all the time of like, "Oh, how good would it be if you knew the name of your farmer?" It's like, yeah, cool. But like, it's actually kind of true, right? Like it's a very like loose non-factual reason. Definitely. But, you know, I, I really do believe that the fact that we're so removed from the production side of our food means that we just don't care. Like if you don't know where or how your fish is being fished, like, you know, 200 nautical miles off the coast of Australia, why would you care about it? It's so beyond your imagination. So the idea of bringing that story in front of people, um, I think is, is really important. You asked about challenges as well and you know, like every disruptor that's around there, um, you know, we're already facing backlash from the status quo, right? Um, people, people that are, I guess, sitting in that place that I discussed, you know, being removed from the food system or, you know, asking them to adapt their business models. The inevitable is happening. They don't necessarily see the benefit straight away and that's normal for human behaviour and we're, we're accepting that, but that's like every disrupted industry, right? Um, and that will no doubt intensify. Um, so, watch this space, I suppose.
Mitchell DentonYeah, totally. When it comes to food loss, waste and sustainability, what's the biggest area related to your role that you're curious about?
Sascha RustHmm. Interesting. That's a really good question. It's not totally relevant to my work, but, um, you know, I've had some amazing mentors and colleagues through, uh, some sort of academic connections that I've got that are deep in the study of human behaviours and decision-making around waste. And they sort of really. Them in particular are dialling down into sort of household behaviours and what, what we do as individuals in the home, like why we throw out food or why we buy things, let them sit in the fridge and then, you know, just kind of forget about them or why we cut 50% of the food. You know, the carrot tops often don't use them. Like, why don't we eat that? You know, all of this kind of really like granular stuff. They've done this, there's a few amazing studies that are out there. Um, being released bracketing people into, you know, under-planners, for instance, um, people that are sort of generally disinterested in food that don't really plan what they eat, they just kind of buy it. So how do they treat food? What are the decisions that they make around food and how they handle food in their home or out, out of the home? You know, what do considerate planners do with a little bit more spare time to think. Um, and you know, if, when you really look at people in categories and, and, and the human psyche of those different sorts of people and how they, you know, how they make very micro-decisions on a day-to-day basis, you can start to really think about the kinds of interventions that might work. And I find that really fascinating. I really, you know, that, that human behavioural side of it all is fundamental to, you know, not just waste in the household, but if you really think about like, "What is it that drives us to make decisions around sustainability?" It, you know, it's a weird mix of, uh, social pressure and, you know, you know, what your mates doing, what you see your mates doing, what you perceive your mates to be doing on Instagram, that kind of thing. And then it's, you know, all of these other influences. And so it's super complex. Um, and, and I find it unbelievably fascinating.
Mitchell DentonYeah, definitely. So is there a particular group or innovation within the industry that you're excitedly keeping a watchful eye on?
Sascha RustYou mean aside from PostHarvest?
Mitchell DentonAside from PostHarvest of course.
Sascha RustUm, absolutely. You know, um, you might not call it innovative or some people might not call it innovative because in a historic sense, I suppose it's not, but you know, there's a, there's a real resurgence of really incredible small scale, medium scale in an increasingly larger scale farmers following a social scientific and environmental doctrine of agroecology, which you may not have heard of, but it sort of blends ideas into a really context-specific idea of basically what is appropriate to how and what is appropriate to farm in a location according to that location. Both across all of those dynamics, right? And these systems are producing huge amounts of food in truly regenerative ways. And this is not the large scale industry adopted branding of regenerative where it's sort of a marketing tool, but it really holds some focus on connection to soil and, and quality of product. And this is innately sustainable in, in the absolute truest sense. And I believe it's absolutely scalable in a decentralised system, like what we're focusing on, right? Look I'm calling it innovative because we've never really had more scientific tools at our disposal. And now there's are a bit getting blended in these really like literally grassroots approaches and small scale holistic behaviours that are feeding communities. Do we still need, you know, massive monocultures in that future? That's a huge question.
Mitchell DentonNo, it really is. So, what's one thing you wish you had known when you first decided to take the leap from working in kitchens to helping improve the very food systems that led to those kitchens?
Sascha RustUh, we all make a lot of those life's choices. I think relatively naively at first, right Mitch? I don't know. I'm sure you've made a couple. Um, look, I never expected or understood initially why, or how or exactly how hard it would be to get people to change their behaviours or adopt new ideas. You know, I'm sure you might've had conversations with people where you're just like, "Why are you not getting this?" Um, and you know, I definitely have a much better appreciation of that now. And I think I would have liked to be better aware of that to begin with, because you know, when I first started to drive new ideas down people's throats, I was probably less tactful being younger and having not had so many people throw it back in my face. Um, so you know, now I take a much more level-headed and long-term approach in the way that I work, I think, and, and by nature, I think I'm having probably a little bit more success.
Mitchell DentonYeah, Yeah, no, that's great. So we are coming to a close, but before we do, I just want to ask you, what is the number one takeaway you really want the listeners to absorb from this episode?
Sascha RustWe didn't really discuss it, but, uh, look. I don't really like talking about, you know, such huge concepts like food system challenges or food system change without talking about the, the really critical, like little steps that are made, um, those little changes that, that really fundamentally matter at that human level or that independent level. Um, no, no one person can solve climate change, right? And a lot of skeptics will say that the littlest decisions don't matter. Um, you know, people throw that in my face all the time. It's like, "Well, what does it matter if I do this? Like that big corporation is doing that". Um, but you know, if you, if, if people that are listening to this take away one message just, you know, please let it be this, every little decision about the way you source and eat food absolutely does make a difference. Like, let me break it out for you. I guess if you and everybody else that shops at your local market refuses to buy the critically endangered spaces that might be on sale there, the fishmonger will then stop selling, right? If all the fishmongers stopped selling it, then the market will stop stocking it. If the market stops, accepting it from the fishers. The fishers will stop fishing it because the price will be so damn low. And so you can see the flow on effect that, that occurs from a little decision at the household level and you, you know, people will go, "Yeah, but like, so many people have to agree to do that, that's so hard. How are you going to get that to happen?" Well, look, you've got to start somewhere and I guess the work that we're doing at Two Hands is, it's there to make those decisions and those choices a lot more easier, make every item of food, traceable to source with sustainability credentials intact, you know, make that a service so you can make these decisions. Um, and everybody can make these decisions really just put that information in front of people. So, it kind of bridges that behavioural barrier, I suppose.
Mitchell DentonYeah, absolutely. Well, that's all for today's episode of "Let's Talk Farm to Fork". Thanks for listening, and thank you Sascha for joining me today.
Sascha RustIt's been awesome, Mitch. Thanks for having me here.
Mitchell DentonIf you'd like to know more about Sascha and Two Hands, check out the link in the description of this episode, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And don't forget to leave a review and share with your friends. Until next time you've been listening to "Let's Talk Farm to Fork", a PostHarvest podcast.
VoiceoverWe appreciate you joining us for this episode of let's talk, farm to fork, be sure to rate, review and subscribe. Also, if you would like to learn more about how you can practically play your part in maximizing fruit and vegetable supplies, whether you're a supplier, consumer, or anyone in between the farm to fork journey, visit PostHarvest.Com and try out their free online course library today.