October 25, 2022 • 25 mins
In this episode of "Let's Talk Farm to Fork", we're joined by Steve Statler from Wiliot, who we will be talking to about how their innovative IoT & Cloud technology is improving distribution and reducing the amount of annual food loss within the fresh produce industry.
https://www.wiliot.com/
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Episode Transcript
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Voiceover (00:02):
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 whatthey do and find out how they're
helping to reduce the amount offood lost or wasted along the
farm to fork journey.
But before we get started, didyou know that according to the
(00:23):
UN's food and agricultureorganisation, around 45% of the
world's fruits and vegetables goto waste each year?
If you would like to learn moreabout how you can practically
play your part in maximisingfruit and vegetable supplies,
whether you're a part of theindustry or simply a consumer.
Visit PostHarvest.Com and tryout their free online course
(00:45):
library today.
Now time for your host MitchellDenton.
Mitchell Denton (00:50):
Hello, and welcome to"Let's Talk Farm
Fork", the PostHarvest podcastthat interviews people of
interest across the food supplychain.
Today on our show, I'm joined bySteve Statler from Wiliot, who
I'll be talking to about howtheir innovative IOT and cloud
technology is improvingdistribution and reducing the
amount of annual food losswithin the fresh produce
industry.
So with no further delays let'sget started.
(01:14):
Hi, Steve.
Thanks for joining me on thepodcast today.
How are you?
Steve Statler (01:17):
Oh, great.
I'm actually just about to gooff on holiday to Italy.
So I'm in that pre-holidayfrenzy, but, uh, I can't think
of a better way of spending theday, than having a chat with you
about some of the things we'redoing.
So thanks for the opportunity todo that.
Mitchell Denton (01:31):
Oh, no worries.
Uh, whereabouts in Italy are yougoing?
Steve Statler (01:35):
We are starting off in Venice, then we're going
to Florence and then we're goingto Rome.
So it's a very touristy route,but it's one I've done before,
and my wife hasn't and neitherhas my son, so I'm, I'm enjoying
doing that with them.
Mitchell Denton (01:48):
No, that'll be lovely.
My wife's from Triste, which isnear Venice, quite North Italy.
So it's a beautiful area, I'mquite jealous.
Steve Statler (01:57):
It is, well, my wife has actually been spending
the last uh week and a bithiking through the Dolomites.
So she's, uh, already kind of inthe zone, uh, in that area,
literally in the zone.
Mitchell Denton (02:10):
Oh, fantastic.
I mean, I could spend the restof this podcast talking about
Italy, but I probably shouldn't.
So, before we get into it, I'mjust gonna let you introduce
yourself.
Uh, tell us what you do, and ifyou have the time, perhaps a fun
fact about yourself.
Steve Statler (02:25):
So, uh, first of all, I'm Steve Statler and I am
responsible for centralmarketing within Wiliot.
I joined the company back in2017, a few weeks after it was
founded.
So I dunno whether that's a funfact, um, uh, other fun facts, I
played a role in a professionalproduction of Antony and
(02:47):
Cleopatra.
Mitchell Denton (02:48):
Oh, nice.
Steve Statler (02:49):
I played a slave that handed an asp to Cleopatra.
And it was an amazing experiencehanging out with a bunch of, uh,
real actors who were, were on TVand that sort of thing.
Mitchell Denton (03:01):
That's great.
In another life, uh, maybewould've gone down the theatre
route.
Is that, is that what I'mgetting from this?
Steve Statler (03:07):
I think so, I think so.
I, um, I don't think I'm a verygood actor, so I'm, it's
probably good that I stuck tothe technology, but I used to
run a, uh, the college radiostation, that required less
talent.
But its also been largelyautomated.
So I'm, I'm pretty pleased thatI, uh, fell into, computer
science and, and then into this.
Mitchell Denton (03:27):
Fantastic.
Before I start to ask youquestions about Wiliot's
technology, I just wanna ask,would you mind describing your
Pixel technology to thelisteners and what goes into
these postage stamp-sized chips?
Steve Statler (03:41):
Yeah, it's, it's a ground up redesigned IOT
device.
So Wiliot is a semiconductordesigner.
We're a fabulous semiconductorcompany.
So we designed this chip, which,uh, is the brains in a computer,
the size of a postage stamp,which is battery-free.
It powers itself by harvestingor recycling, the radio
(04:05):
frequency energy that surroundsit.
Which allows you to make them atvery low cost, very small, very
thin, you know, a lot less, uh,environmentally hazardous when
compared to IOT devices withbatteries.
And, uh, they look a bit likeRFID tags for anyone that's
familiar with those, but theyhave the benefit of being
(04:27):
secure.
Um, they talk to infrastructurethat sometimes is already there.
So the cost of deploying ourproduct in a store can be, uh,
hundreds or thousands of timesless than if you had to kit out
a store or a distribution centreor a tractor with the equivalent
(04:48):
gear.
And, uh, we actually give awayall of that IP and technology to
people that wanna make our tags.
And what we do is we provide acloud service, which gives
people access to the informationthat is provided by these
pixels, these tiny postagestamp-sized computers.
Mitchell Denton (05:06):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Continuing on this thought, thetechnology can be deployed in a
number of use cases, how is yourIOT, pixel, and cloud technology
improving the traceability anddistribution of fresh produce
within the food supply chain?
Steve Statler (05:22):
I mean, there's, uh, a lot of benefits to
applying these tags tocontainers for food and other
products.
But before I go there, it'sbasically about visibility.
Uh, at the moment we really,it's really hard to know what's
going on in a supply chain, 99%of the supply chains in the
(05:43):
dark.
But when you start attachingthese tiny pixel tags, then
suddenly you've got visibility.
So pixels are called pixelsbecause they bring light,
they're small, and when you geta lot of them, you start to get
this picture that wasn't visiblebefore.
And so, you go from a supplychain that's in the dark to
suddenly having an almostomniscient view of the product
(06:07):
throughout the entire cycle fromfarm to store.
And you know, the practicalbenefits of that are massive
opportunity to reduce waste andimprove quality and, uh, reduce
carbon footprint.
So there's a lot that can bedone to make that farm to fork,
(06:27):
supply chain more sustainablesimply by understanding the
temperature and location of theproduct.
From the point that it's pulledout of the ground or, or picked
off the vine or wherever it'sbeing harvested and going to the
destination.
So I can go into a bit moredetail into, you know, why
(06:49):
visibility allows you to reducewaste and, uh...
Mitchell Denton (06:53):
Please do.
Steve Statler (06:54):
Yeah, so, I mean, it's, it's funny, it's like, all
this stuff's been going on inthe dark, you kind of hope that
it's being done efficiently.
Everyone puts the processes inplace, and then you shine a
light on it, or, you know, youlift up the cover and you're
like, argh gosh, reality isactually not always as clean and
tidy as you hoped it would be.
(07:15):
So what we've seen is, you know,one example is just the flow of
product, harvesting and soforth, it's not a gradual
process.
It all gets done, you know,within a short period of time.
So we find produce gets put intopacking sheds, storage areas,
and this sort of ideal"first in,first out" flow of produce turns
(07:39):
into a"last in, first out." So,you can have perishable products
sitting at the back of a storagearea, whether it's on the farm
in a distribution centre or evenin a store.
And so, you know, what should bea three day journey to the store
can actually be an eight dayjourney.
And so just that means thatshelf life is really at its
(08:02):
limit.
And, that's not good because ifthe stuff goes bad in the store,
then you're throwing it away andwriting it off.
If it goes bad in the customer'shome, you know, they get the
strawberries home and they don'ttaste good.
They're obviously dissatisfiedand they'll start looking for
another place to shop.
But that flow is just onedimension, there's a whole
(08:23):
temperature dimension that wesee, especially in cold chains
in, uh, not necessarily frozentransportation of product, but
these refrigerated containers.
You know, we'd like to thinkthat it's all one temperature in
there, but actually it's manydifferent temperature zones.
And as we've started to workwith more and more grocery
stores and we've started taggingmore and more things that go
(08:45):
into these big containers, we'refinding a lot of things that
shouldn't be frozen are beingfrozen.
And a lot of things that shouldbe kept cool are actually much
too warm.
So, I mean, one specificexample, there was, uh,
watermelons that are notsupposed to be frozen and they
weren't just frozen once theywere frozen seven times.
So you can imagine what thatproduct is like when you get it
(09:06):
home, cut it open and you know,it's just mush and the same goes
bananas.
And so there's a lot, and one ofthe things that if you start to
have this omniscient view ofwhere everything is, the flow,
the temperature, you can empowerthe local teams, to fix problems
(09:27):
quickly, send messages to theperson that's in charge.
Maybe the driver who's, turnedoff the cooling unit on the
reefer container.
You can do tactical things, butthen, you know, you, you can
still get amazing informationthat allows you to sort and
reorder the product before itgoes onto the shelf.
Rather than doing first in,first out, which is, uh, very
(09:49):
often seen as the ideal, you canactually do ripest first.
So, something that may have beenin the supply chain for three
days, but has been exposed toquite high temperatures, maybe
you want to get that on theshelf before something that's
been in the supply chain forfour days, but has been kept at,
you know, like a really goodtemperature control level.
(10:10):
So those are some of the thingsthat you can do, and then net
result of that is less waste.
And if you can eliminate waste,then you are essentially
shrinking your carbon footprintand becoming more profitable at
the same time.
Mitchell Denton (10:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I see that there are bothbattery-free and
battery-assisted pixels.
Could you please explain thepoints or difference between the
two?
Steve Statler (10:33):
Yes.
So, uh, size, battery free.
There's no battery, so it tendsto be smaller, battery free tags
are the size of a postage stamp.
When we add a printed battery tothe chip that we have, it does
make it bigger.
It becomes about two thirds, thesize of a business card.
And so there's a sizedifference, there's a cost
(10:54):
difference.
So, uh, our battery free pixels,by the end of next year, they'll
be less than 10 cents.
Our hope is that the batteryassisted pixels will be round
about a dollar in thattimeframe.
So, you add the battery and itdefinitely makes it more
expensive, but it has theadvantage that you don't have to
(11:15):
worry about there being radiowaves to harvest energy from.
So we frequently get thequestion,"I'm on a desert
island.
I'm in the middle of nowhere.
There's no radio energy toharvest, will your product
work?" And the answer is, well,no, it won't.
If it's battery free, but if youhave a battery assisted pixel,
should you wish to start doingserialisation of your supply
(11:36):
chain on a desert island, itwill work.
So that is, you know, really thebenefit and, they're both two
different tools in the kit bagfor people to use, to, uh, get
visibility of, uh, of, ofassets.
Mitchell Denton (11:50):
So I assume the battery assisted pixels would go
on more of those like long hauljourneys through the supply
chain?
Would, would they go throughlike shipments and things like
that?
Steve Statler (12:00):
Well, actually, I mean, you can put the battery
free pixels in there, and insome ways they're very suited to
that, but you do need to have aradio device that is
broadcasting some Bluetoothenergy, or other kinds of
energy.
And is, is configured to readthe tag as well.
And that kind of dishing out theenergy as well as reading it,
(12:22):
it's a hurdle, especially in theearly days, but we're getting
more and more companies thatmake devices that are making
them work with Wiliot, is the,uh, tagline that we use.
And in the future, 6G has beenannounced, and some of the
feature sets include, basicallywhat we are doing.
So we see a future wherebasically every radio device,
(12:45):
uh, will work with ambient tagslike ours.
And so that will be less of aconcern.
The place where we see thebattery assisted tag work best
is where your crowdsourcing.
It's not in a, in a supermarketthat's owned by the person
that's doing the tagging, uh,and the person that's doing the
tagging wants the tags to bereadable in every supermarket
(13:09):
there is.
And, you know, realistically notevery supermarket is gonna have
the devices that energize andread our tags.
So in situations like that,where you're crowdsourcing, use
cases like, uh, merchandisingcompliance, which has the sign
that's advertising the, uh, uh,labor day promotion been put out
(13:29):
and 50% of the time, it's not.
In, in cases like that, whereyou want anyone with a phone to
read a tag randomly in anyplace, then that's the place
where this battery assistedpixel or tag really comes to the
fore.
Mitchell Denton (13:43):
Yeah.
Fantastic.
So have there been any excitingpartnerships that have been
formulated through getting yourtechnology across the farm to
fork journey?
Steve Statler (13:53):
Many many, I mean, part of it is, you know,
the retailer themselves becomesa partner because they're at the
apex of a supply chain thatincludes farmers and
distributors and so forth.
But, in terms of our scale,we're a startup, we're 150
people, we're well funded.
We had a soft bank invested$200million, uh, in our company,
(14:15):
Amazon, PepsiCo are investors.
But, you know, we're still verysmall relative to the giants of
the smart tag industry.
Uh, Avery Dennison is thelargest, and they are, they're
also one of our investors.
But they also have massiveproduction capability and a huge
partner network of companiesthat take inlays, the kind of
(14:38):
the core of these smart tags andfinish them off with different
conversions that might beresistant to, uh, moisture and
all these other things.
So, seeing our core technologyembraced by companies like that
and other, the WiFi access pointvendors, the people that make
those radio devices, uh,companies like Cisco, and Aruba
(14:59):
and, Juniper Mist, who make alot of the infrastructure.
Those are the partnerships thatget me really excited because
therein lies the ability toscale.
And that's what every startupwants to do, that's wanting to
change the world and, and, andwe wanna change the world.
Mitchell Denton (15:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
What's the biggest challengeWiliot is currently facing.
And how are you looking toovercome it?
Steve Statler (15:20):
Well, I think there's many challenges, all of
them are solvable.
At one end of the spectrum,human beings are not very good
at changing what they do.
And if you go to someone andsay,"Hey, what if you could see
every item inventory in yoursupply chain?
Would that be valuable?" Thenthey'd probably say yes, it
would be valuable, but then, youknow, how do they get ready to
(15:43):
absorb that?
It just requires a lot ofre-engineering of roles,
responsibilities, processes.
And that is one of ourchallenges, it's yeah, this can
completely transform our supplychains, make them safer, more
efficient, more sustainable, butit requires change.
So our response to that is to beless ambitious and really look
(16:07):
at optimising processes thatalready exist.
So we've gravitated to applyingour tags to returnable transport
items, crates, and pallets,because if you suddenly get
visibility of those you don'treally have to change what you
do.
You just can have a smaller poolof pallets and crates, and, you
know, rather than buying 6million, you buy 5 million and
(16:28):
you tend to lose a lot less ofthem.
So that doesn't requireboardroom decisions, but to
really take advantage of what wedo and maximise the benefit,
which is, you know, less aboutoptimising the crates and more
about optimising what's in thecrates, the produce.
That tends to require people tochange what they do and how they
(16:50):
do it.
And that really just requireseducation, which is why people
who do what you do are reallyimportant to us because you're
helping to get the word out.
Hopefully people will listen tothis and they'll give some
thought to it.
And, uh, you know, eventually asan ecosystem, we'll figure out
that,"Yeah, this is a goodidea." And we'll all start
(17:10):
changing the way we do what wedo.
Mitchell Denton (17:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You, you mentioned earlier,cases of watermelons being
frozen up to seven times beforereaching their end destination.
I'm just wondering, what's thebiggest surprise you've found in
relation to fruits andvegetables, traveling through
the fruit supply chain.
Steve Statler (17:28):
Um, just the sheer magnitude of the issues.
That's like just one issue, Icould reel off a litany of bad
handling, problems, which noneof it's malicious and it's just,
know, everyone's doing theirjob.
And, you know, the fact thateveryone's under the arrival of
(17:49):
stuff that should be in chillersthat are left for hours on the
shop floor.
And I mean, there's just so manythings like that.
And the thing that is a littlefrustrating is that finding out
about problems is not alwayswelcomed, you know?
Mitchell Denton (18:06):
Yeah.
Steve Statler (18:07):
It's like, uh, ignorance is bliss and there's
definitely a certain amount ofthat.
So it's not just abouttechnology, it's about
empowering people to solve theproblems.
If all this information goes tosome VP in head office and they
start firing out nasty grams toeveryone that's got a problem,
then that's gonna beproblematic.
So, part of what we've got to dois think about systems that
(18:32):
provide the information topeople that can fix the problem
before anyone in headquartersever sees it.
And yeah, okay, maybe there'sescalation.
So there's a lot of usability,user experience, design,
cultural things.
So the fact that people don'twant to know that there are
problems is probably the thingthat, call me naive, but I just
(18:52):
thought people would wanna know,but uh, often they don't.
Mitchell Denton (18:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
Continuing this thread, we'vetalked about how the supply
chain is mostly in the dark,talking about traceability and
transparency.
What, in your opinion representsone of the main challenges in
the fight against food waste?
Steve Statler (19:10):
I think it's the fact that our organisations are
not set up to do what needs tobe done.
And I think, you know, whatwe've talked about is pretty
technical.
If you look at how many peoplewould be bothered to follow
along and think about this, it'sit's small.
So, you know, I think gettingthe information to the board
(19:32):
level, CXO level about what ispossible and then having them
get the right people to approachit in the right way is, I mean,
those are some of the thingsthat I think are critical to
moving it forward.
And you know, the thing that hasreally surprised me pleasantly
is that when you do talk to achairman or a, a, a CEO, they
(19:56):
kind of get it.
They're kind of hoping thatthere are some magic bullets
from a technology perspectivethat are gonna allow them to
deal with this supply chainnightmare that we're facing and,
and the environmental nightmare.
I mean, it was 111 degrees justup the road from me in
Escondido.
This can't go on, we've gotta dosomething about it.
And, if it's about everyonedoing the right thing, then
(20:18):
guess what nothing's gonnahappen.
But what I see is theopportunity to save money and
have, you know, much bettertasting fruit and vegetables and
throwing less away.
And so that's kind of what getsme up in the morning, that's the
thing that makes me optimistic.
Mitchell Denton (20:34):
Talking to guests on this podcast, the
COVID pandemic has either been abit of a problem or a great
opportunity for them and theirbusiness.
I just wanna know, as far asWiliot is concerned, for better
or worse, has the COVID pandemichad any effect on your day to
day operations?
Steve Statler (20:51):
For sure.
Uh, and you know, it's been amixed bag.
We went for over a year of notseeing the, the R and D folks
over in Israel where the chipsare designed and a management
team that couldn't get together.
And that had a real impact onus.
But the flip side was, it'sreally created some huge
(21:12):
problems that our technology isreally well suited to.
So outside of the farm sectorwhere this definitely applies,
but outside of the farm sector,you know, we, we ended up doing
a project to integrate our tagwith those tiny vials of COVID
vaccine.
That would never have happenedif we hadn't been dealing with
the fact that temperaturecontrol of medicine is also
(21:35):
super important.
Mitchell Denton (21:36):
Definitely.
Steve Statler (21:37):
So it's, and it's also stressed retail in a way
that I think is accelerated, youknow, coming to terms with what
was happening already, which isthis move to omnichannel buy
online pickup in store.
Suddenly everyone's been forcedto learn how to order things
(21:57):
online.
And the old ways, just no longerare sustainable.
Uh, we see, 20% of pick requestsfailing, uh, when people buy
online because the inventory isjust so outta whack, because the
old systems didn't need to bethat accurate, but the new
systems have to be superaccurate because if I'm buying
(22:18):
the last watermelon and I showup, and it's not there, then I'm
gonna get pretty annoyed.
You know, there's only so manysubstitutions that someone
that's getting a delivery willaccept.
So, it's definitely helped usfrom that perspective, by
accelerating the visibility ofproblems that were gonna be
surfaced anyway.
Mitchell Denton (22:38):
Absolutely.
So is there a particular groupor innovation within the
industry that you're excitedlykeeping a watchful eye on?
Steve Statler (22:47):
I mean, I think it's the retailers, because you
know, they have so much power.
They can set, you know, one ofour largest customers.
I think who's almost everyone'slargest customer.
They have the ability to setstandards in a way that can
completely transform anindustry, that's a very, um,
(23:08):
exciting thing.
So it's, it's, it's what kind ofis driving a huge amount of our
hiring activity.
So if anyone is interested inwhat I've just described, then
please go to the careers page onwiliot.com because we need
people to deploy this technologyand, and, and make it work to
satisfy those, those retailerswho really the agenda in this
(23:30):
supply chain.
Mitchell Denton (23:31):
Yeah great.
So Steve, we are coming to aclose, but before we do, I just
wanted to ask what is the majorpoint you really want the
listeners to take away from thisepisode?
Steve Statler (23:41):
I think the key thing is the possibilities of
what can be done, you know,start to think about if
everything was online and Icould see where everything was,
how could I change my business?
And, It's taken me years toreally think through this, to
the extent that I have.
And I think it's a, it's a, it'sa very valuable thought
experiment.
And who knows, maybe you'llstart up a new business or maybe
(24:04):
you'll start up a new businessinside your own business or, or,
you know, maybe you'll bring insome technology that can address
some of these big problems thatwe've been discussing.
Mitchell Denton (24:13):
Yeah, No, that's great.
Well, that's offered today'sepisode of"Let's Talk Farm to
Fork." Thanks for listening, andthank you, Steve, for joining me
today.
Steve Statler (24:22):
Oh, it's been a, it's been a real pleasure.
Thanks so much.
Mitchell Denton (24:25):
If you'd like to know more about Steve and
Wiliot, check out the link andthe description of this episode.
Make sure to subscribe to thepodcast so that you never miss
an episode.
And don't forget to leave areview and share with your
friends.
Until next time you've beenlistening to"Let's Talk Farm to
Fork", a PostHarvest podcast.
Voiceover (24:40):
We appreciate you joining us for this episode of
let's talk, farm to fork, besure to rate, review and
subscribe.
Also, if you would like to learnmore about how you can
practically play your part inmaximizing fruit and vegetable
supplies, whether you're asupplier, consumer, or anyone in
between the farm to forkjourney, visit PostHarvest.Com
(25:03):
and try out their free onlinecourse library today.
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 whatthey do and find out how they're
helping to reduce the amount offood lost or wasted along the
farm to fork journey.
But before we get started, didyou know that according to the
(00:23):
UN's food and agricultureorganisation, around 45% of the
world's fruits and vegetables goto waste each year?
If you would like to learn moreabout how you can practically
play your part in maximisingfruit and vegetable supplies,
whether you're a part of theindustry or simply a consumer.
Visit PostHarvest.Com and tryout their free online course
(00:45):
library today.
Now time for your host MitchellDenton.
Mitchell Denton (00:50):
Hello, and welcome to"Let's Talk Farm
Fork", the PostHarvest podcastthat interviews people of
interest across the food supplychain.
Today on our show, I'm joined bySteve Statler from Wiliot, who
I'll be talking to about howtheir innovative IOT and cloud
technology is improvingdistribution and reducing the
amount of annual food losswithin the fresh produce
industry.
So with no further delays let'sget started.
(01:14):
Hi, Steve.
Thanks for joining me on thepodcast today.
How are you?
Steve Statler (01:17):
Oh, great.
I'm actually just about to gooff on holiday to Italy.
So I'm in that pre-holidayfrenzy, but, uh, I can't think
of a better way of spending theday, than having a chat with you
about some of the things we'redoing.
So thanks for the opportunity todo that.
Mitchell Denton (01:31):
Oh, no worries.
Uh, whereabouts in Italy are yougoing?
Steve Statler (01:35):
We are starting off in Venice, then we're going
to Florence and then we're goingto Rome.
So it's a very touristy route,but it's one I've done before,
and my wife hasn't and neitherhas my son, so I'm, I'm enjoying
doing that with them.
Mitchell Denton (01:48):
No, that'll be lovely.
My wife's from Triste, which isnear Venice, quite North Italy.
So it's a beautiful area, I'mquite jealous.
Steve Statler (01:57):
It is, well, my wife has actually been spending
the last uh week and a bithiking through the Dolomites.
So she's, uh, already kind of inthe zone, uh, in that area,
literally in the zone.
Mitchell Denton (02:10):
Oh, fantastic.
I mean, I could spend the restof this podcast talking about
Italy, but I probably shouldn't.
So, before we get into it, I'mjust gonna let you introduce
yourself.
Uh, tell us what you do, and ifyou have the time, perhaps a fun
fact about yourself.
Steve Statler (02:25):
So, uh, first of all, I'm Steve Statler and I am
responsible for centralmarketing within Wiliot.
I joined the company back in2017, a few weeks after it was
founded.
So I dunno whether that's a funfact, um, uh, other fun facts, I
played a role in a professionalproduction of Antony and
(02:47):
Cleopatra.
Mitchell Denton (02:48):
Oh, nice.
Steve Statler (02:49):
I played a slave that handed an asp to Cleopatra.
And it was an amazing experiencehanging out with a bunch of, uh,
real actors who were, were on TVand that sort of thing.
Mitchell Denton (03:01):
That's great.
In another life, uh, maybewould've gone down the theatre
route.
Is that, is that what I'mgetting from this?
Steve Statler (03:07):
I think so, I think so.
I, um, I don't think I'm a verygood actor, so I'm, it's
probably good that I stuck tothe technology, but I used to
run a, uh, the college radiostation, that required less
talent.
But its also been largelyautomated.
So I'm, I'm pretty pleased thatI, uh, fell into, computer
science and, and then into this.
Mitchell Denton (03:27):
Fantastic.
Before I start to ask youquestions about Wiliot's
technology, I just wanna ask,would you mind describing your
Pixel technology to thelisteners and what goes into
these postage stamp-sized chips?
Steve Statler (03:41):
Yeah, it's, it's a ground up redesigned IOT
device.
So Wiliot is a semiconductordesigner.
We're a fabulous semiconductorcompany.
So we designed this chip, which,uh, is the brains in a computer,
the size of a postage stamp,which is battery-free.
It powers itself by harvestingor recycling, the radio
(04:05):
frequency energy that surroundsit.
Which allows you to make them atvery low cost, very small, very
thin, you know, a lot less, uh,environmentally hazardous when
compared to IOT devices withbatteries.
And, uh, they look a bit likeRFID tags for anyone that's
familiar with those, but theyhave the benefit of being
(04:27):
secure.
Um, they talk to infrastructurethat sometimes is already there.
So the cost of deploying ourproduct in a store can be, uh,
hundreds or thousands of timesless than if you had to kit out
a store or a distribution centreor a tractor with the equivalent
(04:48):
gear.
And, uh, we actually give awayall of that IP and technology to
people that wanna make our tags.
And what we do is we provide acloud service, which gives
people access to the informationthat is provided by these
pixels, these tiny postagestamp-sized computers.
Mitchell Denton (05:06):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Continuing on this thought, thetechnology can be deployed in a
number of use cases, how is yourIOT, pixel, and cloud technology
improving the traceability anddistribution of fresh produce
within the food supply chain?
Steve Statler (05:22):
I mean, there's, uh, a lot of benefits to
applying these tags tocontainers for food and other
products.
But before I go there, it'sbasically about visibility.
Uh, at the moment we really,it's really hard to know what's
going on in a supply chain, 99%of the supply chains in the
(05:43):
dark.
But when you start attachingthese tiny pixel tags, then
suddenly you've got visibility.
So pixels are called pixelsbecause they bring light,
they're small, and when you geta lot of them, you start to get
this picture that wasn't visiblebefore.
And so, you go from a supplychain that's in the dark to
suddenly having an almostomniscient view of the product
(06:07):
throughout the entire cycle fromfarm to store.
And you know, the practicalbenefits of that are massive
opportunity to reduce waste andimprove quality and, uh, reduce
carbon footprint.
So there's a lot that can bedone to make that farm to fork,
(06:27):
supply chain more sustainablesimply by understanding the
temperature and location of theproduct.
From the point that it's pulledout of the ground or, or picked
off the vine or wherever it'sbeing harvested and going to the
destination.
So I can go into a bit moredetail into, you know, why
(06:49):
visibility allows you to reducewaste and, uh...
Mitchell Denton (06:53):
Please do.
Steve Statler (06:54):
Yeah, so, I mean, it's, it's funny, it's like, all
this stuff's been going on inthe dark, you kind of hope that
it's being done efficiently.
Everyone puts the processes inplace, and then you shine a
light on it, or, you know, youlift up the cover and you're
like, argh gosh, reality isactually not always as clean and
tidy as you hoped it would be.
(07:15):
So what we've seen is, you know,one example is just the flow of
product, harvesting and soforth, it's not a gradual
process.
It all gets done, you know,within a short period of time.
So we find produce gets put intopacking sheds, storage areas,
and this sort of ideal"first in,first out" flow of produce turns
(07:39):
into a"last in, first out." So,you can have perishable products
sitting at the back of a storagearea, whether it's on the farm
in a distribution centre or evenin a store.
And so, you know, what should bea three day journey to the store
can actually be an eight dayjourney.
And so just that means thatshelf life is really at its
(08:02):
limit.
And, that's not good because ifthe stuff goes bad in the store,
then you're throwing it away andwriting it off.
If it goes bad in the customer'shome, you know, they get the
strawberries home and they don'ttaste good.
They're obviously dissatisfiedand they'll start looking for
another place to shop.
But that flow is just onedimension, there's a whole
(08:23):
temperature dimension that wesee, especially in cold chains
in, uh, not necessarily frozentransportation of product, but
these refrigerated containers.
You know, we'd like to thinkthat it's all one temperature in
there, but actually it's manydifferent temperature zones.
And as we've started to workwith more and more grocery
stores and we've started taggingmore and more things that go
(08:45):
into these big containers, we'refinding a lot of things that
shouldn't be frozen are beingfrozen.
And a lot of things that shouldbe kept cool are actually much
too warm.
So, I mean, one specificexample, there was, uh,
watermelons that are notsupposed to be frozen and they
weren't just frozen once theywere frozen seven times.
So you can imagine what thatproduct is like when you get it
(09:06):
home, cut it open and you know,it's just mush and the same goes
bananas.
And so there's a lot, and one ofthe things that if you start to
have this omniscient view ofwhere everything is, the flow,
the temperature, you can empowerthe local teams, to fix problems
(09:27):
quickly, send messages to theperson that's in charge.
Maybe the driver who's, turnedoff the cooling unit on the
reefer container.
You can do tactical things, butthen, you know, you, you can
still get amazing informationthat allows you to sort and
reorder the product before itgoes onto the shelf.
Rather than doing first in,first out, which is, uh, very
(09:49):
often seen as the ideal, you canactually do ripest first.
So, something that may have beenin the supply chain for three
days, but has been exposed toquite high temperatures, maybe
you want to get that on theshelf before something that's
been in the supply chain forfour days, but has been kept at,
you know, like a really goodtemperature control level.
(10:10):
So those are some of the thingsthat you can do, and then net
result of that is less waste.
And if you can eliminate waste,then you are essentially
shrinking your carbon footprintand becoming more profitable at
the same time.
Mitchell Denton (10:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I see that there are bothbattery-free and
battery-assisted pixels.
Could you please explain thepoints or difference between the
two?
Steve Statler (10:33):
Yes.
So, uh, size, battery free.
There's no battery, so it tendsto be smaller, battery free tags
are the size of a postage stamp.
When we add a printed battery tothe chip that we have, it does
make it bigger.
It becomes about two thirds, thesize of a business card.
And so there's a sizedifference, there's a cost
(10:54):
difference.
So, uh, our battery free pixels,by the end of next year, they'll
be less than 10 cents.
Our hope is that the batteryassisted pixels will be round
about a dollar in thattimeframe.
So, you add the battery and itdefinitely makes it more
expensive, but it has theadvantage that you don't have to
(11:15):
worry about there being radiowaves to harvest energy from.
So we frequently get thequestion,"I'm on a desert
island.
I'm in the middle of nowhere.
There's no radio energy toharvest, will your product
work?" And the answer is, well,no, it won't.
If it's battery free, but if youhave a battery assisted pixel,
should you wish to start doingserialisation of your supply
(11:36):
chain on a desert island, itwill work.
So that is, you know, really thebenefit and, they're both two
different tools in the kit bagfor people to use, to, uh, get
visibility of, uh, of, ofassets.
Mitchell Denton (11:50):
So I assume the battery assisted pixels would go
on more of those like long hauljourneys through the supply
chain?
Would, would they go throughlike shipments and things like
that?
Steve Statler (12:00):
Well, actually, I mean, you can put the battery
free pixels in there, and insome ways they're very suited to
that, but you do need to have aradio device that is
broadcasting some Bluetoothenergy, or other kinds of
energy.
And is, is configured to readthe tag as well.
And that kind of dishing out theenergy as well as reading it,
(12:22):
it's a hurdle, especially in theearly days, but we're getting
more and more companies thatmake devices that are making
them work with Wiliot, is the,uh, tagline that we use.
And in the future, 6G has beenannounced, and some of the
feature sets include, basicallywhat we are doing.
So we see a future wherebasically every radio device,
(12:45):
uh, will work with ambient tagslike ours.
And so that will be less of aconcern.
The place where we see thebattery assisted tag work best
is where your crowdsourcing.
It's not in a, in a supermarketthat's owned by the person
that's doing the tagging, uh,and the person that's doing the
tagging wants the tags to bereadable in every supermarket
(13:09):
there is.
And, you know, realistically notevery supermarket is gonna have
the devices that energize andread our tags.
So in situations like that,where you're crowdsourcing, use
cases like, uh, merchandisingcompliance, which has the sign
that's advertising the, uh, uh,labor day promotion been put out
(13:29):
and 50% of the time, it's not.
In, in cases like that, whereyou want anyone with a phone to
read a tag randomly in anyplace, then that's the place
where this battery assistedpixel or tag really comes to the
fore.
Mitchell Denton (13:43):
Yeah.
Fantastic.
So have there been any excitingpartnerships that have been
formulated through getting yourtechnology across the farm to
fork journey?
Steve Statler (13:53):
Many many, I mean, part of it is, you know,
the retailer themselves becomesa partner because they're at the
apex of a supply chain thatincludes farmers and
distributors and so forth.
But, in terms of our scale,we're a startup, we're 150
people, we're well funded.
We had a soft bank invested$200million, uh, in our company,
(14:15):
Amazon, PepsiCo are investors.
But, you know, we're still verysmall relative to the giants of
the smart tag industry.
Uh, Avery Dennison is thelargest, and they are, they're
also one of our investors.
But they also have massiveproduction capability and a huge
partner network of companiesthat take inlays, the kind of
(14:38):
the core of these smart tags andfinish them off with different
conversions that might beresistant to, uh, moisture and
all these other things.
So, seeing our core technologyembraced by companies like that
and other, the WiFi access pointvendors, the people that make
those radio devices, uh,companies like Cisco, and Aruba
(14:59):
and, Juniper Mist, who make alot of the infrastructure.
Those are the partnerships thatget me really excited because
therein lies the ability toscale.
And that's what every startupwants to do, that's wanting to
change the world and, and, andwe wanna change the world.
Mitchell Denton (15:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
What's the biggest challengeWiliot is currently facing.
And how are you looking toovercome it?
Steve Statler (15:20):
Well, I think there's many challenges, all of
them are solvable.
At one end of the spectrum,human beings are not very good
at changing what they do.
And if you go to someone andsay,"Hey, what if you could see
every item inventory in yoursupply chain?
Would that be valuable?" Thenthey'd probably say yes, it
would be valuable, but then, youknow, how do they get ready to
(15:43):
absorb that?
It just requires a lot ofre-engineering of roles,
responsibilities, processes.
And that is one of ourchallenges, it's yeah, this can
completely transform our supplychains, make them safer, more
efficient, more sustainable, butit requires change.
So our response to that is to beless ambitious and really look
(16:07):
at optimising processes thatalready exist.
So we've gravitated to applyingour tags to returnable transport
items, crates, and pallets,because if you suddenly get
visibility of those you don'treally have to change what you
do.
You just can have a smaller poolof pallets and crates, and, you
know, rather than buying 6million, you buy 5 million and
(16:28):
you tend to lose a lot less ofthem.
So that doesn't requireboardroom decisions, but to
really take advantage of what wedo and maximise the benefit,
which is, you know, less aboutoptimising the crates and more
about optimising what's in thecrates, the produce.
That tends to require people tochange what they do and how they
(16:50):
do it.
And that really just requireseducation, which is why people
who do what you do are reallyimportant to us because you're
helping to get the word out.
Hopefully people will listen tothis and they'll give some
thought to it.
And, uh, you know, eventually asan ecosystem, we'll figure out
that,"Yeah, this is a goodidea." And we'll all start
(17:10):
changing the way we do what wedo.
Mitchell Denton (17:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You, you mentioned earlier,cases of watermelons being
frozen up to seven times beforereaching their end destination.
I'm just wondering, what's thebiggest surprise you've found in
relation to fruits andvegetables, traveling through
the fruit supply chain.
Steve Statler (17:28):
Um, just the sheer magnitude of the issues.
That's like just one issue, Icould reel off a litany of bad
handling, problems, which noneof it's malicious and it's just,
know, everyone's doing theirjob.
And, you know, the fact thateveryone's under the arrival of
(17:49):
stuff that should be in chillersthat are left for hours on the
shop floor.
And I mean, there's just so manythings like that.
And the thing that is a littlefrustrating is that finding out
about problems is not alwayswelcomed, you know?
Mitchell Denton (18:06):
Yeah.
Steve Statler (18:07):
It's like, uh, ignorance is bliss and there's
definitely a certain amount ofthat.
So it's not just abouttechnology, it's about
empowering people to solve theproblems.
If all this information goes tosome VP in head office and they
start firing out nasty grams toeveryone that's got a problem,
then that's gonna beproblematic.
So, part of what we've got to dois think about systems that
(18:32):
provide the information topeople that can fix the problem
before anyone in headquartersever sees it.
And yeah, okay, maybe there'sescalation.
So there's a lot of usability,user experience, design,
cultural things.
So the fact that people don'twant to know that there are
problems is probably the thingthat, call me naive, but I just
(18:52):
thought people would wanna know,but uh, often they don't.
Mitchell Denton (18:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
Continuing this thread, we'vetalked about how the supply
chain is mostly in the dark,talking about traceability and
transparency.
What, in your opinion representsone of the main challenges in
the fight against food waste?
Steve Statler (19:10):
I think it's the fact that our organisations are
not set up to do what needs tobe done.
And I think, you know, whatwe've talked about is pretty
technical.
If you look at how many peoplewould be bothered to follow
along and think about this, it'sit's small.
So, you know, I think gettingthe information to the board
(19:32):
level, CXO level about what ispossible and then having them
get the right people to approachit in the right way is, I mean,
those are some of the thingsthat I think are critical to
moving it forward.
And you know, the thing that hasreally surprised me pleasantly
is that when you do talk to achairman or a, a, a CEO, they
(19:56):
kind of get it.
They're kind of hoping thatthere are some magic bullets
from a technology perspectivethat are gonna allow them to
deal with this supply chainnightmare that we're facing and,
and the environmental nightmare.
I mean, it was 111 degrees justup the road from me in
Escondido.
This can't go on, we've gotta dosomething about it.
And, if it's about everyonedoing the right thing, then
(20:18):
guess what nothing's gonnahappen.
But what I see is theopportunity to save money and
have, you know, much bettertasting fruit and vegetables and
throwing less away.
And so that's kind of what getsme up in the morning, that's the
thing that makes me optimistic.
Mitchell Denton (20:34):
Talking to guests on this podcast, the
COVID pandemic has either been abit of a problem or a great
opportunity for them and theirbusiness.
I just wanna know, as far asWiliot is concerned, for better
or worse, has the COVID pandemichad any effect on your day to
day operations?
Steve Statler (20:51):
For sure.
Uh, and you know, it's been amixed bag.
We went for over a year of notseeing the, the R and D folks
over in Israel where the chipsare designed and a management
team that couldn't get together.
And that had a real impact onus.
But the flip side was, it'sreally created some huge
(21:12):
problems that our technology isreally well suited to.
So outside of the farm sectorwhere this definitely applies,
but outside of the farm sector,you know, we, we ended up doing
a project to integrate our tagwith those tiny vials of COVID
vaccine.
That would never have happenedif we hadn't been dealing with
the fact that temperaturecontrol of medicine is also
(21:35):
super important.
Mitchell Denton (21:36):
Definitely.
Steve Statler (21:37):
So it's, and it's also stressed retail in a way
that I think is accelerated, youknow, coming to terms with what
was happening already, which isthis move to omnichannel buy
online pickup in store.
Suddenly everyone's been forcedto learn how to order things
(21:57):
online.
And the old ways, just no longerare sustainable.
Uh, we see, 20% of pick requestsfailing, uh, when people buy
online because the inventory isjust so outta whack, because the
old systems didn't need to bethat accurate, but the new
systems have to be superaccurate because if I'm buying
(22:18):
the last watermelon and I showup, and it's not there, then I'm
gonna get pretty annoyed.
You know, there's only so manysubstitutions that someone
that's getting a delivery willaccept.
So, it's definitely helped usfrom that perspective, by
accelerating the visibility ofproblems that were gonna be
surfaced anyway.
Mitchell Denton (22:38):
Absolutely.
So is there a particular groupor innovation within the
industry that you're excitedlykeeping a watchful eye on?
Steve Statler (22:47):
I mean, I think it's the retailers, because you
know, they have so much power.
They can set, you know, one ofour largest customers.
I think who's almost everyone'slargest customer.
They have the ability to setstandards in a way that can
completely transform anindustry, that's a very, um,
(23:08):
exciting thing.
So it's, it's, it's what kind ofis driving a huge amount of our
hiring activity.
So if anyone is interested inwhat I've just described, then
please go to the careers page onwiliot.com because we need
people to deploy this technologyand, and, and make it work to
satisfy those, those retailerswho really the agenda in this
(23:30):
supply chain.
Mitchell Denton (23:31):
Yeah great.
So Steve, we are coming to aclose, but before we do, I just
wanted to ask what is the majorpoint you really want the
listeners to take away from thisepisode?
Steve Statler (23:41):
I think the key thing is the possibilities of
what can be done, you know,start to think about if
everything was online and Icould see where everything was,
how could I change my business?
And, It's taken me years toreally think through this, to
the extent that I have.
And I think it's a, it's a, it'sa very valuable thought
experiment.
And who knows, maybe you'llstart up a new business or maybe
(24:04):
you'll start up a new businessinside your own business or, or,
you know, maybe you'll bring insome technology that can address
some of these big problems thatwe've been discussing.
Mitchell Denton (24:13):
Yeah, No, that's great.
Well, that's offered today'sepisode of"Let's Talk Farm to
Fork." Thanks for listening, andthank you, Steve, for joining me
today.
Steve Statler (24:22):
Oh, it's been a, it's been a real pleasure.
Thanks so much.
Mitchell Denton (24:25):
If you'd like to know more about Steve and
Wiliot, check out the link andthe description of this episode.
Make sure to subscribe to thepodcast so that you never miss
an episode.
And don't forget to leave areview and share with your
friends.
Until next time you've beenlistening to"Let's Talk Farm to
Fork", a PostHarvest podcast.
Voiceover (24:40):
We appreciate you joining us for this episode of
let's talk, farm to fork, besure to rate, review and
subscribe.
Also, if you would like to learnmore about how you can
practically play your part inmaximizing fruit and vegetable
supplies, whether you're asupplier, consumer, or anyone in
between the farm to forkjourney, visit PostHarvest.Com
(25:03):
and try out their free onlinecourse library today.
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