"We use Moutai's own anti-counterfeiting technology." On August 14, the owner of a Moutai dealer store in Chengdu told Xiaolian Finance.
He holds a rectangular white "spotlight" and shines it on the bottle cap of Moutai 53-degree Feitian Moutai. "You can see a black dot moving up there. This is real wine."
What the boss showed to Xiaolian Finance was Moutai’s RFID radio frequency identification technology. This technology is an anti-counterfeiting traceability system launched by Moutai in 2013. This technology adds an RFID chip to the bottle cap, which consumers and dealers can identify through the NFC function on their mobile phones.
In addition, the boss also introduced three methods to Xiaolian Finance: naked eye recognition, identifier recognition and anti-counterfeiting identifiers to identify the authenticity of Moutai. However, throughout the communication process, the above-mentioned Moutai dealer boss did not mention the anti-counterfeiting technology that Moutai began to explore three years ago - blockchain anti-counterfeiting.
The anti-counterfeiting traceability application of blockchain technology in the alcohol industry has been highly praised by industry insiders and is considered to be the perfect combination of market demand and advanced technology. However, industry insiders who did not want to be named told Xiaolian Finance that early projects exploring blockchain + alcohol traceability applications have progressed slowly, and some have even been suspended.
Xiaolian Finance also noticed that after announcing the use of blockchain technology for anti-counterfeiting traceability, wineries rarely issued announcements about the implementation of relevant applications.
How big is the gap between ideal and reality?
Is traceability a wrong requirement?
As we all know, the problem of counterfeit wine has always been accompanied by the development of wineries, and combating counterfeiting and preventing counterfeiting is the ultimate mission of wineries. The China Judgment Documents Network shows that so far, 652 judgment documents can be retrieved using the keyword "counterfeit Maotai"; 1,038 documents for "fake Wuliangye" can be retrieved; and 303 documents can be retrieved for "fake Luzhou Laojiao".
In recent years, such fraud cases have emerged one after another. Among them, in 2019, there were a total of 234 cases involving "counterfeit Wuliangye", a record high. The data intuitively presents the current situation that famous wines such as Moutai, Wuliangye, and Luzhou Laojiao are deeply troubled by counterfeit and shoddy products.
It is imperative to combat counterfeiting. Well-known wineries such as Moutai and Wuliangye have paid huge costs for this. The relevant person in charge of Wuliangye once said in an interview with the media that Wuliangye’s annual anti-counterfeiting funds are 150 million yuan, and this number is still rising year by year. Moutai’s public documents also mentioned many times that Moutai spends 200 million yuan every year on fighting counterfeiting.
From the market demand side, the wine industry is indeed facing a serious problem of counterfeit wine disrupting the market. But even so, practitioners and industry experts in the blockchain industry still maintain a consistent negative attitude towards the application of blockchain technology in the wine industry.
"The current common situation in the liquor industry + blockchain is that there is a lot of thunder but little rain. In other words, they don't know enough about blockchain applications, and they just start doing it simply because they think it can guarantee traceability." After being interviewed by Xiaolian Finance, American Li Gu Yanxi, founder of Yan Consulting Company, said frankly.
Zhu Tao, co-founder of Chengdu Guoxin Anchain Information Technology Co., Ltd., also holds the same view. During the interview, he emphasized to Xiaolian Finance many times: "To be precise, it doesn't make much sense."
Zhu Tao once led the blockchain technology traceability project in the wine industry. Zhu Tao said that Renhuai has many wineries. When we talk to them about blockchain traceability, they are more concerned about whether it can increase their sales.
“They want to increase brand awareness rather than trace the source and combat counterfeiting,” Zhu Tao said.
Mid- to low-end wineries have no demands for anti-counterfeiting, while high-end wineries are clamoring for the application of blockchain technology. To make matters worse, the arrival of blockchain technology has also been used by people with ulterior motives to commit fraud and disrupt the market order of wine sales.
In April 2019, China Economic Net also exposed that Maotai's company "Tianchao Shangpin" was suspected of financial fraud and using blockchain currency to cut leeks.
Some netizens reported that Tianchao Shangpin implemented a method of giving away coins when buying wine, and released information to promote the circulation of "Guiren Hall".
It is reported that if you spend 1,200 yuan to buy two bottles of Tianchao Shang wine, you can get a 55 noble pass; if you spend 3,600 yuan, you can get a 165 return pass; to buy two boxes of 7,200 yuan of Tianchao business wine, you can get a 330 noble pass; to spend 18,000 to buy 5 If you buy a box of Tianchao commercial wine, you can get 825 Noble Pass A; if you buy ten boxes of Tianchao commercial wine for 36,000, you can get 1650 Noble Pass.
"They are selling you wine to give you coins, right? They are not selling you coins. This approach of avoiding legal risks is a gray route." An industry insider told Xiaolian Finance.
Not a good deal
The application of blockchain technology in the wine industry has been discussed for more than three years. Now, not only has it failed to achieve true traceability and anti-counterfeiting, it has actually caused chaos in the market. This is puzzling. The long-term demands of wineries to combat counterfeiting and blockchain technology should go hand in hand, but why are there so many contradictions?
Gu Yanxi believes that, first of all, wineries have no incentive to use blockchain to fight counterfeiting and trace their origins.
Gu Yanxi said: “In fact, every industry faces traceability issues, but from the perspective of the company itself, there is no original motive for using blockchain technology to trace traceability and combat counterfeiting.”
On the one hand, each liquor company has launched its own anti-counterfeiting system and re-explored new areas, involving major adjustments in management; on the other hand, high-end liquor manufacturers do not need to rely on blockchain in brand building and sales. This emerging technology drives sales and builds brand value.
Data show that Moutai achieved revenue of 43.953 billion yuan in the first half of 2020, a year-on-year increase of 11.31%; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 22.602 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.29%.
In 2019, Wuliangye achieved operating income of 50.118 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.20%; net profit attributable to the parent company was 17.402 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 30.02%.
High-end liquor has no motivation to pay attention to the traceability application of blockchain technology, and low-end liquor has no demand for traceability and anti-counterfeiting. “It’s of little significance to trace the origins of wine worth one to two hundred yuan and crack down on counterfeiting,” Zhu Tao said.
Secondly, Xia Qi, deputy director of the Cyberspace Security Research Center of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and CEO of Xunrui Chengdu Technology, believes that from a cost and benefit perspective, blockchain technology is not suitable for alcohol traceability applications.
She said: "With the same price and technical means, there is very little room for blockchain to increase the added value of alcohol. Therefore, it is not cost-effective to use blockchain to truly realize the traceability and anti-counterfeiting of alcohol." ...High. Blockchain technology is a luxury product, but wine is not. "
The "luxury" of blockchain is that it needs to ensure the authenticity of data from all aspects. Zhu Tao personally pays attention to the blockchain + wine traceability project. He said that at that time, only the product delivery link was completed, which was equivalent to five links including raw material collection, brewing, and storage.In fact, there are still many links in the follow-up, such as logistics, warehousing, dealers, etc.
Compared with the cost of the blockchain technology itself, the cost of ensuring that the data of all aspects of wine, from raw materials to terminal sales, is actually on the chain is much greater. After several years of practice, this has become a consensus in the industry.
"Blockchain does not account for too much cost in the entire solution. More importantly, it ensures that data is not tampered with during product production and circulation. Indicators of humidity and temperature also need to be tracked in the warehouse, which require physical Internet-enabled support.” To achieve this, information is transferred from the product itself to the blockchain. In addition, payment terminals and user terminals need to be developed for users to use. Gu Yanxi told Xiaolian Finance, “These complexities and difficulties are far greater than the blockchain technology itself in the district.”
In addition to the mismatch between the costs paid and the benefits obtained, the application of blockchain in the wine industry also faces difficulties in promotion and implementation.
Zhu Tao said: "It is still difficult to promote the application of blockchain technology in small and medium-sized enterprises. At the beginning, every enterprise will spend a lot of money to build a system, and then use this line to build an application... It is okay to do one or two, but So what if we make hundreds of them? Without the leadership of leading companies, it will be difficult to promote it.”
If leading winery companies cannot implement the blockchain traceability model, then small factories downstream of the industrial chain will not be able to implement it either.
Third, Gu Yanxi believes that the reason why blockchain technology has not yet been truly implemented in the wine industry is that the government does not have mandatory supervision.
Gu Yanxi said: "Only when the government forces this to happen, the relevant legal penalties will be very high. Only in this way can blockchain traceability be truly promoted."
Let the bullet fly longer
Given that the blockchain industry is still in its early stages of development, related technologies are not yet mature enough, policy supervision has not yet officially entered this field, and companies are also in a wait-and-see attitude towards applications. This technology is developing in the direction of traceability, and the alcohol industry is not optimistic about blockchain. technology. Due to various reasons such as practical needs, blockchain has encountered bottlenecks in the traceability and anti-counterfeiting work of the alcohol industry.
However, based on the recognition of blockchain technology, industry insiders have not stopped exploring blockchain + wine. Based on the current problem that the costs and benefits of blockchain are not directly proportional to the traceability of alcohol, Gu Yanxi proposed to establish an industrial alliance in the alcohol industry and use the power of the alliance to "enter" the blockchain to jointly promote alcohol traceability. - Anti-counterfeiting and traceability of wine. , can achieve the effects of reducing costs and improving efficiency.
In addition, Xiaolian Finance noticed that Wuliangye has innovative applications in blockchain + wine. In March this year, the “digital wine certificate” launched by Wuliangye not only has fidelity attributes, but also has original factory warehousing, origin delivery, one-click transfer, collection and more applications.
Public information shows that the entire generation and transfer of Wuliangye digital wine certificates rely on blockchain technology. Blockchain, with its features such as decentralization and high encryption, can make digital wine certificates unforgeable and leave traces throughout the entire life cycle. Open and transparent.
High-end liquor is insured by insurance companies during the warehousing and distribution process. If the goods are exchanged or damaged during transportation, the insurance company will fully compensate the user. This means that the ownership and value of the "Wuliangye Digital Wine Certificate" are double guaranteed by blockchain technology and insurance companies, which avoids doubts about the value of the physical wine caused by risks such as subcontracting and substitution after the winery leaves the winery. Provides protection for physical wine. The collection, gifting and investment consumption scenarios of Wuliangye digital wine coupons have laid the foundation of value trust.
Wuliangye’s innovation in “digital assetization of famous wines” has also attracted the attention of the industry. Xia Qi believes that blockchain technology can be used to upgrade wine itself to the level of digital transformation and provide regulatory certification for ordinary people.
It can be seen that all imaginations based on blockchain technology are currently being explored. They may seem struggling, or they may have a lot of imagination, but we might as well let the bullets fly for a while and wait for the perfect combination of blockchain and the wine industry.
标签： #Moutai #Blockchain #Anti-counterfeiting traceability #Anti-counterfeiting system #Liquor
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