Farm-to-Table Ingredient Traceability on Cardano

[Proposal setup] Proposal title

Please provide your proposal title

Farm-to-Table Ingredient Traceability on Cardano

[Proposal Summary] Budget Information

Enter the amount of funding you are requesting in ADA

90000

[Proposal Summary] Time

Please specify how many months you expect your project to last

8

[Proposal Summary] Translation Information

Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated

No

Original Language

en

[Proposal Summary] Problem Statement

What is the problem you want to solve?

Farm-to-table restaurants rely on trust and authenticity, but diners have no easy way to verify ingredient origins. Current provenance systems are fragmented, paper-based, and prone to greenwashing.

[Proposal Summary] Project Dependencies

Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

No

Describe any dependencies or write 'No dependencies'

No dependencies

[Proposal Summary] Project Open Source

Will your project's outputs be fully open source?

No

License and Additional Information

Apache 2.0 License

[Theme Selection] Theme

Please choose the most relevant theme and tag related to the outcomes of your proposal.

NFT

[Campaign Category] Category Questions

Describe what makes your idea innovative compared to what has been previously funded (whether by you or others).

This project builds a transparent ingredient provenance system on Cardano, bringing supply chain traceability directly to diners. Using CIP-68 for low-cost dynamic updates, Atala PRISM for verified supplier identities, and NFC/QR integration for guest engagement, it turns provenance into a marketing asset. A hybrid on/off-chain model stores proofs, images, and certificates efficiently, while modular smart contracts enable expansion across hospitality. Future zero-knowledge proofs add privacy. Unlike closed tools, this creates an open, scalable standard for trust, sustainability, and dining.

Describe what your prototype or MVP will demonstrate, and where it can be accessed.

The MVP will include:

1. Smart contracts for supplier registration, ingredient batch recording, and linking to menu items.
2. Supplier onboarding dashboard to register farms, upload credentials, and manage updates.
3. Restaurant integration module for mapping menu items to ingredient batches.
4. Guest-facing web app that displays provenance data upon NFC/QR scan.
5. Pilot deployment in one seasonal restaurant with 10–15 traceable dishes.

Testing on Cardano Pre-Production network with simulated supplier updates.

Describe realistic measures of success, ideally with on-chain metrics.

This project tracks on-chain and off-chain metrics to ensure measurable outcomes. On-chain: 10+ verified suppliers onboarded, 50+ CIP-68 NFTs minted/updated, 100+ menu linkages, and 500+ diner scans of QR/NFC codes. Off-chain: at least one pilot restaurant with 10–15 menu items, 80% scan success, 30+ diner feedbacks, and 100% supplier DID verification. 70% of NFTs will include sustainability scores. Open-source contracts ensure scalability to 50+ restaurants, merging blockchain trust with real-world adoption.

[Your Project and Solution] Solution

Please describe your proposed solution and how it addresses the problem

This project delivers an on-chain ingredient provenance registry for the hospitality industry, starting with farm-to-table restaurants. Each supplier (farm, fishery, artisan producer) is registered in a Cardano smart contract with verifiable credentials.

When a restaurant sources ingredients, the supplier updates the record with:

• Origin details (farm name, GPS region, certification IDs)
• Harvest/production date
• Sustainability score (aligned to a recognized standard, e.g., FairTrade or organic certifications)

Guests interact via NFC tags or QR codes printed on menus, receipts, or dish cards. Scanning fetches the on-chain record, displaying origin data in a mobile-friendly UI.

Key Cardano Technologies:

• Immutable provenance: Ingredient details stored on-chain prevent tampering.
• Supplier verification: Integration with Atala PRISM or Verisart ensures supplier identity and certification authenticity.
• CIP-68 metadata: Supports dynamic updates to sustainability scores and batch details without reminting NFTs.

MVP Scope:

• On-chain registry of verified suppliers.
• Integration with one POS/booking system for menu linkage.
• NFC/QR code printing for 10–15 menu items.
• Pilot with a seasonal farm-to-table restaurant partner.

This approach bridges off-chain trust (supplier audits) with on-chain verifiability, boosting consumer confidence and creating a reusable traceability standard for the hospitality sector.

[Your Project and Solution] Impact

Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

The Farm-to-Table Ingredient Traceability MVP directly drives real-world adoption of Cardano’s blockchain infrastructure in a high-visibility consumer sector—hospitality and gastronomy—while showcasing the platform’s unique advantages in low-cost, verifiable, and composable on-chain identity and provenance systems.

1. On-Chain Transaction Growth:Every supplier registration, menu item update, and ingredient batch change generates immutable on-chain transactions (CIP-68 metadata updates, DID issuance, and NFT minting). Even a single restaurant updating a menu weekly could generate hundreds of micro-transactions per month. Scaling to 50–100 restaurants creates sustained, recurring transaction flow, increasing stake pool rewards and Cardano network activity without relying on speculative trading.
2. Atala PRISM Adoption & Verifiable Identity: The project leverages Atala PRISM DIDs (or equivalent verifiable credentials) to authenticate farms, fisheries, and artisanal producers. This expands PRISM usage into the agri-food supply chain, a vertical with strong policy and consumer demand for traceability. Once onboarded, these verified suppliers could reuse their DIDs across export documentation, compliance filings, and B2B supply chain contracts—extending Cardano’s reach beyond hospitality into logistics and trade.
3. Differentiator for Cardano in Enterprise Use Cases: While Ethereum and Hyperledger supply chain projects exist, they often suffer from high transaction fees, closed consortium access, or lack of consumer-facing transparency. Cardano’s low fees and native metadata capabilities make per-batch and per-ingredient provenance economically viable, setting it apart for SME adoption where margins are thin. This project serves as a reference architecture that other food industry players can fork, adapt, and deploy without starting from scratch.
4. Integration with NFT & DeFi Ecosystem: The on-chain ingredient registry can integrate into NFT-driven storytelling and DeFi staking models for sustainable suppliers:
   1. Restaurants could issue limited “seasonal menu NFTs” linked to traceable ingredient data.
   2. DeFi users could stake ADA or stablecoins to fund certified sustainable farms, verified via the same provenance registry—creating a DeFi-meets-hospitality bridge unique to Cardano.
5. Strengthening Cardano’s ESG & Sustainability Credentials: Cardano is already aligned with sustainability narratives in blockchain. This project embeds environmental and ethical data directly into consumer experiences (carbon footprint, fair trade certification, regenerative farming methods). This helps position Cardano as the preferred chain for environmentally-conscious and socially responsible business models, which aligns with growing ESG investment trends.
6. Flywheel Effect for Broader Adoption: A working MVP in a single restaurant chain can:
   1. Attract local tourism boards, organic cooperatives, and luxury food exporters to integrate with the registry.
   2. Encourage hospitality schools to train future chefs and managers in Cardano-based provenance tools.
   3. Create partnership opportunities with logistics providers, QR/NFC hardware suppliers, and certification bodies, all feeding into the same Cardano-backed ecosystem.
7. Catalyst ROI & Reusability: The project’s open, composable smart contract modules and supplier registry schema will be published under an open-source license, allowing:
   1. Other Catalyst projects to integrate provenance into wine, coffee, chocolate, or seafood traceability without new smart contract development.
   2. Developers to focus on front-end customisation, accelerating adoption and lowering barriers to market entry.

[Your Project and Solution] Capabilities & Feasibility

What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

Core Team:

Romain Ribera — Hospitality Operations & Strategic Partnerships

Romain has extensive experience in managing hospitality operations, events, and business workflows, with deep knowledge of recruitment, staff onboarding, and compliance. His network in the hospitality sector ensures that the DID and CIP-68 credential system is mapped to actual regulatory requirements and operational realities. He will lead industry partner engagement, ensuring supplier onboarding, QR/NFC adoption, and alignment with farm-to-table certification processes.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/romain-ribera-a781b521/

Youri Axel Michel — Hospitality Management & Process Optimisation

Youri brings a proven track record in venue management, service quality, and staff training pipelines. His understanding of verification needs, supply chain accountability, and multilingual communications will guide the design of supplier identity verification, batch provenance records, and compliance-friendly metadata structures. He will ensure the platform directly addresses restaurant pain points such as ingredient origin fraud and lack of transparent sourcing.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/youri-michel-670134114/

Alexandra Herghelegiu — UI/UX Designer & Digital Experience Specialist

Alexandra specialises in user-friendly web and mobile experiences, with a strong portfolio in enterprise dashboards and HR tools. She will lead the dApp interface design for both consumer-facing (menu scans) and business-facing (supplier registry, provenance updates) flows, ensuring NFC/QR integrations are intuitive for both restaurant staff and diners.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-herghelegiu/

Seasonal Cardano Blockchain Developers

The technical development will be handled by contract engineers with proven delivery experience in Atala PRISM DIDs, CIP-68 dynamic NFTs, and Cardano metadata standards. They will also integrate with Verisart APIs or similar proof-of-provenance services and implement IPFS storage for sustainability certificates. This approach ensures cost efficiency while securing top-tier blockchain talent for the MVP phase.

The team’s division of roles ensures parallel progress across partnership onboarding, technical architecture, and front-end design. Existing relationships in hospitality accelerate pilot recruitment, while the blockchain developers’ familiarity with Cardano tooling (Plutus, PRISM SDKs, metadata registries) significantly reduces technical risk.

[Milestones] Project Milestones

Milestone Title

Design & Architecture

Milestone Outputs

The design and architecture phase will deliver the complete technical and operational blueprint for the MVP. This includes:

• On-chain registry schema for suppliers, mapped to Cardano metadata standards, ensuring each supplier has a unique, verifiable entry.
• CIP-68 NFT metadata model for ingredient batches, allowing dynamic updates for harvest date, sustainability score, and certification status.
• QR/NFC data structure and encoding method, compatible with both consumer-facing menu scans and kitchen-level inventory systems.
• Integration flow diagrams mapping restaurant POS/booking systems to blockchain event triggers.
• Documentation of Verisart or Atala PRISM integration for supplier verification, ensuring immutability and trust at the data layer.
• Security and privacy considerations for protecting sensitive supplier data while ensuring public verification of sourcing claims.

Acceptance Criteria

• Registry schema must be Plutus-ready and compatible with Cardano metadata JSON schema.
• NFT model must support dynamic updates without requiring reminting (CIP-68 compliance).
• QR/NFC format must be universally scannable and link to a decentralized resource (IPFS or Arweave).
• Integration flow diagrams reviewed and approved by at least one contracted Cardano blockchain engineer and one restaurant tech consultant.
• Documentation includes both technical and non-technical summaries, ensuring adoption by restaurant IT teams and blockchain developers.
• Meets GDPR and hospitality compliance for storing supplier data.

Evidence of Completion

• GitHub repository with registry schema, NFT metadata templates, and integration diagrams.
• PDF design document detailing QR/NFC encoding specs, on-chain interactions, and off-chain indexing logic.
• Review sign-off by technical advisor and hospitality operations lead.
• Recorded demo walk-through of the architecture in a team meeting.
• Public blog post summarizing the design phase for community visibility.

Delivery Month

2

Cost

20000

Progress

20 %

Milestone Title

Development of On-chain Registry & NFT Contracts

Milestone Outputs

This milestone delivers the functional blockchain backbone of the traceability system. Key deliverables:

• Smart contract suite for supplier registry management (create, update, verify supplier entries).
• NFT minting logic for ingredient batch tokens, linked to supplier IDs and batch-specific metadata.
• Revocation/update features to handle expired or incorrect data without breaking the audit trail.
• IPFS integration for storing large documents such as sustainability certificates and inspection reports.
• Unit and integration tests ensuring contract logic is secure and behaves as expected in the Cardano pre-production testnet environment.

Acceptance Criteria

• All smart contracts pass compilation and execution tests in the Plutus test framework.
• NFT minting logic adheres to CIP-68 with proper metadata structure validation.
• Registry updates reflect on-chain immediately and are verifiable through standard Cardano block explorers.
• IPFS storage integration tested with both small JSON payloads and larger PDF/PNG certificate files.
• Code reviewed by at least one external Plutus developer with no critical vulnerabilities reported.

Evidence of Completion

• Public or private GitHub repository with contract code, tests, and deployment scripts.
• Testnet transaction hashes proving successful supplier registry creation, NFT minting, and metadata updates.
• IPFS hashes for sample sustainability certificate uploads.
• Internal QA report documenting test coverage and results.

Delivery Month

2

Cost

25000

Progress

40 %

Milestone Title

QR/NFC Integration & Consumer Interface

Milestone Outputs

• NFC tag and QR code generation tool integrated with the on-chain registry, producing scannable codes for each menu item.
• Consumer-facing dApp or mobile web interface showing origin details, farm profile, harvest date, sustainability score, and certificate link when scanned.
• POS system integration for updating menu item-linked NFTs with new ingredient batches automatically.
• Local cache system for restaurants to allow scanning functionality during internet outages.

Acceptance Criteria

• QR/NFC codes resolve within 2 seconds to the correct ingredient provenance data.
• Consumer interface tested for mobile and desktop responsiveness and accessibility compliance (WCAG 2.1 AA).
• POS system triggers tested for at least two common restaurant software solutions (e.g., Square, Lightspeed).
• All scans must return data matching on-chain records, with no mismatch between blockchain and UI.
• NFC tags resistant to tampering, tested for durability in restaurant environments.

Evidence of Completion

• Working NFC tags and QR codes for at least 10 test menu items in the pilot restaurant.
• Video demonstration of a guest scanning a menu item and receiving provenance details.
• POS integration documentation with configuration steps.
• GitHub repository containing UI code and NFC encoding scripts.

Delivery Month

2

Cost

20000

Progress

70 %

Milestone Title

Pilot Deployment & Feedback

Milestone Outputs

• Full deployment in one seasonal farm-to-table restaurant and onboarding of at least two verified suppliers.
• Live minting of NFTs for 50+ ingredient batches and issuance of QR/NFC-enabled menus.
• Staff training sessions and onboarding documentation for restaurant managers and suppliers.
• Customer feedback collection via integrated survey after scanning.
• Post-pilot report with metrics: scan frequency, customer engagement rate, and supplier update cycles.

Acceptance Criteria

• At least 50 ingredient batch NFTs minted and linked to menu items.
• ≥80% scan success rate during the first month of live operation.
• Feedback collected from at least 30 diners and 5 staff members on usability and perceived trust.
• All suppliers pass PRISM or Verisart verification and are visible in the on-chain registry.
• Final pilot report reviewed by both blockchain dev team and restaurant management.

Evidence of Completion

• On-chain transaction list showing batch NFT mints and registry updates.
• Screenshots or recordings of live menu scans in the pilot restaurant.
• Survey data summary and pilot performance metrics report.
• Public blog post and/or Catalyst update presenting the pilot results and next-phase roadmap

Delivery Month

2

Cost

25000

Progress

100 %

[Final Pitch] Budget & Costs

Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

Milestone 1 – Design & Architecture – ₳20K

• 1 Solution Architect (part-time) – ₳12K

• 1 Backend Engineer (part-time) – ₳8K

Milestone 2 – Smart Contract & Backend Development – ₳25K

• 1 Blockchain Developer (full-time) – ₳18K

• 1 Backend Engineer – ₳7K

Milestone 3 – Guest Web App & POS Integration – ₳20K

• 1 Full-Stack Developer – ₳14K

• 1 UX Designer – ₳6K

Milestone 4 – Pilot Deployment & Feedback – ₳25K

• 1 Project Manager – ₳8K

• 1 DevOps Engineer – ₳7K

• 1 Community Manager – ₳10K

Total: ₳90K

[Final Pitch] Value for Money

How does the cost of the project represent value for the Cardano ecosystem?

This proposal delivers a high-impact, low-cost MVP that combines Cardano’s unique blockchain capabilities with a real-world hospitality use case, ensuring tangible ecosystem growth within a lean ₳95K budget. Every ADA spent is focused on core development, real deployment, and measurable adoption—avoiding unnecessary overhead or non-critical activities.

1. Strategic Use of Cardano’s Strengths

Immutable Supply Chain Data: By using Cardano for the on-chain supplier registry and CIP-68 NFT ingredient tokens, the project exploits the platform’s low-fee, high-security ledger—ideal for frequent metadata updates.

Interoperability: Supplier verification via Atala PRISM and document anchoring via Verisart creates a template for integrating Cardano into global food and sustainability certification systems.

Consumer Engagement Layer: Each menu scan becomes a blockchain interaction, introducing non-crypto diners to Cardano without the complexity of wallets or tokens.

1. Direct Ecosystem Impact per ADA Spent

Supplier Onboarding: Every verified farm or producer onboarded is a new real-world Cardano identity.

NFT Minting & Updates: Each ingredient batch NFT minted and updated is a live transaction on Cardano, generating fees and adding to network activity.

Hospitality Sector Entry Point: The MVP positions Cardano in the restaurant industry—an untapped sector with global scaling potential.

1. Reusable, Open Framework

While the restaurant pilot is the first use case, the on-chain registry + dynamic NFT model can be repurposed for wine provenance, artisanal goods, or even luxury retail supply chains—maximizing return on the initial investment.

Open documentation and code repositories ensure Catalyst-funded IP benefits the wider community, enabling other projects to launch similar systems without starting from scratch.

1. Operational Efficiency

Lean team structure: Blockchain development is handled by seasoned Cardano engineers on a contract basis, avoiding full-time payroll costs while ensuring top-tier code quality.

Industry-driven design: Hospitality experts in the team ensure the system solves real business problems, increasing adoption likelihood and avoiding wasted development cycles.

1. Scalability & Sustainability

Built as a modular system, it can easily expand to more restaurants, suppliers, and international markets without redesign.

Revenue model for restaurants and suppliers (licensing, white-labeling, or certification fees) ensures long-term sustainability without ongoing Catalyst funding.

In summary: For under ₳100K, the project will deploy a fully operational, customer-facing blockchain solution that drives real Cardano transactions, builds public trust in on-chain provenance, and creates an open standard for future supply chain transparency in hospitality—maximizing ecosystem returns for every ADA invested.

[Required Acknowledgements] Consent & Confirmation

Terms and Conditions:

Yes