I really hope that the people in our company really have a desire and a passion to say that they can also make this world a better place if we could be a lot more efficient than throwing away 30% of the things that we grow. Good morning, good afternoon, or a good evening where everywhere in the world. Welcome to episode 70 of the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast, the number one show focusing exclusively on the intersection of sustainability and supply chains. I'm your host, Tom Raftery, and I'm thrilled to have you here. A huge thank you to this podcast's, amazing supporters, Kieran Ognev and Alicia Farag. You folks really helped to make this podcast possible. If anyone else gets value from this podcast and would like to become a supporter, support starts at just three euros or dollars a month, which is less than the cost of a cup of coffee. You can find the support link in the show notes of this or any episode or at tinyurl.com/ssc pod. On the Sustainable Supply Chain podcast today I'm talking to someone who's making the food supply chain smarter, greener, and less wasteful. Meet Gary Loh, the man behind DiMuto's mission to transform how we track, trade and finance the fruits and vegetables that we rely on every day. He's not your typical agricultural guy. In fact, Gary started out in private equity and investment banking before realising the food supply chain was stuck in the past and he decided to fix it. Gary's company doesn't just add another software tool. They're changing how farmers, packers, shippers, and retailers see and share data, so we stop wasting 30% of our food. Gary joins me today to talk about how data and technology can help us build a more transparent, sustainable, and connected global food system without losing sight of the farmers and communities that grow our food. But before we get to that, in the next few weeks, I will be talking to Rene Schrama, who's the CCO of Peak Tech. Pierre Lapree, who's the CPO of Spend HQ. Eric Biel, who's the Director of Strategic Partnerships for Powercast and Chris Conden, co-founder and CEO of Air Con. Now back to today's episode, and as I mentioned, my special guest on the show today is Gary. Gary, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself? First of all, Tom, thank you very much. It's such a pleasure to be on your podcast. And hi, everyone. My name is Gary, Gary Loh and I'm from Singapore. I'm from a company called Dimuto. It's a company that basically is trying to redefine the agri trade and invites the name of the company itself. Dimuto actually has a meaning in Latin. Muto means transformation and the DI in front of it is actually digital transformation. So it's a company that has been trying to change the way the agri trade and the way we actually see the agriculture that has not changed very much for the past 5,000 years, or just using technology to assist us to actually do the job a lot easier. And what's your journey into the agriculture space, Gary? Cause it's not what you'd call traditional, right? Absolutely not. Thanks, Tom, because the journey started off on my career was actually I've been in the finance trade for 15 years. I was a banker. I was in private equity. I was investment banking. And managed to set up my own investment firm where one of the investments was actually into an agriculture company. It's a Singapore listed company. And I was one of those elite investors which was supposed to be a simple deal, right? It was supposed to put in some money, go into the company and turn the company around. But, lo and behold, it was not an easy company. And it was a company that was basically growing Fuji apples in China. And it was a operation that manages. 1,400 hectares of plantation, managing 44,000 metric ton of cold rooms and of course, selling to 22,000 point of sales, right? So it was, it was a massive operation and that was one where everything that we thought was simple wasn't simple. And I roll up my sleeve and basically went into this industry and actually took almost 10 years to turn the company around and got myself into understanding actually completely what the agri trade is all about. And what has surprised you most in your journey from investment banking to now agriculture? Well, great question again, right? So it's one of those where you go in thinking that the world has basically changed, and a lot of technology, a lot of improvements in the day of the horses into the motor cars. Well, we think everything else would have changed, but when you look at the agricultural trade. I think not much has changed. I think it's probably the second oldest profession, if I may say so. So that's kind of like what we see. The biggest difference is agriculture has been almost the same for the past 5,000 years. I think the pen and paper, the ability to do things in, in the way that has not changed in our forefathers has actually been the biggest surprise for me. And, what do you think, I mean, you say you want to fix the global agri food industry. What's broken in it, in the agri, agri food supply chain today? And what should we be doing differently? Yeah. I think all of us understand that there's something that needs to be done, but I think where the biggest challenges is that most of us operate in silos. And what I mean by that is that if you're a farming community, you're just doing what you need to do on farming, the soil, the quality, the yield. And, if you're in the packing house, you're just making sure that you get the best produce coming out and put it in a box and you ship it. And then if you're a shipper, well, basically you're responsible to make sure that it gets from one location to the next location. And if you're a receiver, you just want to receive the best fruits so that you can actually on sell it to the market that you want. And for the supermarkets they want to have the availability all year round with the quality that they want, with the best prices that they want. And for the consumer, they just want to make sure that it's good. Now, when you look at it from that perspective, the silos can't really talk to one another because we all have our own little systems. And it's also something that's broken is that the way technology currently works, it doesn't cut across. And and and where platforms wasn't built for us to put information that can be shared. And the second part of it is information that's in the silo, we like to keep it to ourselves. And it's precious to us. So when, when we hear this theme about wanting to share information and, be good to everyone and good to the world and be able to see this, I think that's a fallacy, right? It's, it's difficult to get everybody to do something where the incentive, or the economic incentive is not aligned. So to me, I think if you want to change something as you, maybe you have to address the economic incentive first. So that people can understand why is it that by sharing data or having data presented, it's going to basically be helpful to them. And I think that will start getting the industry changing. Okay, so how do you go about doing that? Well, first of all, it's not easy, right? First of all, the industry believes that. Well, since it's not broken, we still deliver the thing, even though we may not be as sustainable as we want it to be, even though, food waste is about 30% along the way, and claims are about 5 to 10%. It's okay because it's not disastrous. Food still appears on the table. So it's really a very difficult mindset to change when people think that, you know, first of all, it's not broken, so why do we have to fix it? So to us at DiMuto, we've taken a different approach, right? It's one of those that we say that if you can't, you can bring the horse to the water, but you can't force the horse to drink. So in the way we look at it is why don't we just start doing it and transforming the industry by putting the economic interests to be aligned. So what we mean by that is we're taking our own private labels to now actually sell those produce that comes with all the technology built in. And when we work with our suppliers, we actually provide that technology as if that has already been paid for. So they actually understand what they have to do and the technology that they actually have to apply. For the buyers, they then get the benefit of seeing all that data that they now can actually be using it without, again, hoping that their suppliers will invest in the technology. So this is our way of saying that if you want to incentivise people to do the right thing, I think making sure that you get the purchase order or giving them an order for them to work on it. and then be able to get buyers to buy things that actually get the kind of transparency, sustainability that's required for the data that they need, then I think the alignment would be there. So that's sort of like the way we have been doing it. Okay, so let me just try and see if I understand this correctly. In order to break down the silos between the different buckets of information, what you've done is you've created your own one with no silos between the different buckets of information, your own platform. And then you go to the growers, you buy their produce, and then you go to the buyers, the supermarkets or whatever, and you offer it to them, saying to them, We have all the information you can see all the way through all the silos back to the growers because it's all on our platform. Is that more or less what you're saying? Tom, thank you so much. I could, I couldn't have summarised it better than you have. All right, but thank you. That was a brilliant summary. Yes. Okay. And so how are you capturing this information? Because not all the growers will have the technology, as you said, 5,000 year old technology. They won't all have up to date technology or will they? How's that? How does that work? We started in about 2020, just before COVID and we built the technology. For example, the IOT devices. It literally was built from the ground out and we have a, camera, a vision sensor to basically put it on the packed lines before you close the box. And then we have the QR codes to track every single box that goes through your packing line. So this, for example, will be a machine that we put it into your packed lines and we work with the packing houses to ensure that they understands this. The second part of it is, for example, at the farming level, we also have a farm app to know when they do what kind of seeds, what kind of seedlings, when do they actually plant, when is the expected harvest, or when do they do the necessary pesticides, and what is the expected yield. Again what was pen and paper, now the application is now given to them for them to use. And then for the pre inspection, for example, we've actually put it all into a platform as well for them to fill it up and then replacing it with one form of their pen and paper, putting it into an Excel spreadsheet and then sending it via email. So a lot of this technology that, like you said, it's not going to be inherent in the packers nor in the farmers. This is actually provided by DiMuto and the team on the ground. We basically provide this so that you level up the playing field very quickly. And then the benefit for them is that once they get a handle on saying, Hey, this is actually great for themselves because in our trade, it's always been the burden of proof is always on the supplier to say that they did what they said they did, but they may not have that ability to show what is it exactly they have done. So the technology that we put in place and giving it to them in a manner where it's so called free, they feel that they have actually been assisted. And this provides us by ensuring that they do the right thing, and we have the information and the data flow, right? So that's how we've been capturing it. Then that's the way, you know, like you said, you can't expect the person to change overnight, but by giving such incentives and by ensuring that they have the tools to do this stuff, for example, even simple things like they would say, Hey, Gary, I don't have a label. I don't have a printer. This is where we come in and we say, we'll buy you the printer. This is how you print. And then this is how you fix it in. And this is how you actually get the information and we train. And fundamentally, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to fill up the information. So this is a way to ensure that they get to use it and actually feel comfortable with it as well. Is it a case that it's a requirement on the growers to use all your technology so that you can capture all that information so that you then purchase from them? Correct. So, but I would have probably put it the other way and say that this is the purchase order. I'm going to give you 10 containers order for this period. It's going to be valued this, but the requirements would be this, this, this and that. Would you be okay to use this? Maybe they will say, all right, Gary, I wouldn't label every single box, but I'll label maybe say 10 percent of the boxes. And then once that trade starts going on and there are issues on the ground on the receiving side and they see it and they go, Hey, maybe I should put more than 10%. Maybe I should do 50%, right? Because now when they pick each boxes and eventually they say, Gary, I think you're right. Let's do 100%. So, like I said, you know, you can't force the horse to drink the water. But I think the benefit of drinking the water would be obvious to them when they start seeing the application of the technology for their benefits. Okay. And how then do the end buyers, consumers or supermarkets, whichever, how can they be assured that the data that they're seeing is verifiable. Yeah, so this, this is another part that we have actually used and we use the blockchain. And the blockchain has also been misconstrued that it's everything about cryptocurrency and everything else that what blockchain has been at. But for us, in the layman's way of looking at the blockchain, fundamentally, I always call it the Excel spreadsheet that's a little bit more fancy. So I call it a fancy Excel spreadsheet. And it's one where we use the blockchain to put data into an Excel spreadsheet where you cannot change. It's something that once you put it, it's immutable and at the end of the day, it allows all of us to be able to see the same Excel spreadsheet and, and not your Excel spreadsheet versus my Excel spreadsheet. So, so this is something that we've been allowing to ensure that it's, it's not going to what I would call error proof the trade that there will never be any error in the trade, but what it does, it, it, it proves the error of the trade, where if there was a mistake done, you will probably be able to see the mistakes and you can't change that mistakes. And if you do make a mistake, you just have to make an amendment to it. And it actually will be timestamped. So this is again, one of the ways so that the benefit to the consumer or the bias in that sense of our customers, that that data that is being entered, it's not that one that they can be worried about. Because for example, a FITO certification that is put up by the supplier, would actually be the vital certification. And if they actually do anything fraudulent or something that is not that proper, they can't use this, Oh, I'm sorry, I sent the wrong one because what they sent will be recorded, timestamped and actually captured on the blockchain. So that's kind of like the way we have actually been actually to show the benefit to our buyers as well. And what markets are you operating in? I know it says you're in Singapore, but you're going beyond just Southeast Asia, right? Oh, yes. I think with basically our current biggest market right now is actually the US. The US has been a very big market because our sourcing market is also the Latin America. So our main operations that we have besides Southeast Asia, and I'll come back to Southeast Asia a little bit, but let me just explore and expand what we do in the countries in Latin America. So for example, we are very much in Mexico. So things like cucumbers, green peppers, tomatoes the avocados. the berries. Those are the items that we do a lot from Mexico. So in Colombia, in Peru, in Ecuador, in Chile, in Argentina. So again, this are mainly markets that not only serve the US But what we have also been able to do is using the same that we have in Latin America. We're now also catering into the Southeast Asian market. So that will mainly be for Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, but including North Asia, there will be from Japan, Korea and China. So. we have also done, not only do we sell products that's coming in into Southeast Asia and Asia, we also source tropical fruits that, for example, durians, the mangoes, the lychee, the longan, and then we do cross borders as well. And this includes the Korean strawberries or the Japanese apples and pears. So it's, it's quite a dynamic but I guess as you know, Tom, cross border trades is actually happening every day. And the availability requirements has always been, I want it all year round. So, so this is also some of the things that we've been doing in terms of why we operate in the way we do. And if I go into a store in one of the markets you're serving, will I see the DiMuto label or is it labeled by the shops with their own white label, or is there any way for me to know? Yeah, so for the private labels that we have, we have some brands that's called Solumi, Dilumi for the vegetables, Solumi for the fruits specifically. But the way we have done it for the Dimuto is "Powered by Dimuto". So it's almost like an Intel Inside kind of thing that when you see a brand, you know that the technology that DiMuto brings to the table, to the brand and the brand promise is actually what we have done. So, powered by DiMuto would probably be where you, if you see, but to be honest. It really comes at B2B level. So that means, for example, it's going to be more the distributors and the supermarkets where if can imagine you will have a container of 1,700 cotton boxes coming in from a container and you start distributing it to different stores and to be able to now track per store to the box and to be able to see that whole journey of that one box. That's the kind of power that we bring to the table. And that's sort of like the the marketing angle of powered by DiMuto with the brands that you have. So that will include, you know, eventually the private labels of the supermarket chain. They may want to say that this is also powered by DiMuto. So that's kind of like where we are in terms of it Okay. And do you, or will you in time include something like a QR code on the label so that people can see the data right the way back to the grower or is that on your road map at all? It is absolutely. It is already there right now. So for all our brand of Salumi or Dilumi, there's already a QR code. And that QR code allows you to basically scan it and understand what a consumer will be caring about it. But more importantly, I think Tom, the part of consumers really is not just about wanting to know where it comes from, because after a while, once you scan it, you know that it works and you know where it came from, you probably feel at ease and you trust the brand. But more importantly, the way we use this QR code is for actually participating in, for example, a lucky draw. So for example, in Indonesia, we actually got our consumers to say, you can scan the QR code, and then basically you say, I bought the apples, for example, from this supermarket, and then you take a picture of your receipt. And then be able to say that I submit this receipt and be able to win a gold coin, or win an Apple iPhone. And to be very honest, you now get to understand what your consumer and who your consumer are and actually their feedback is very direct. And one of the benefits, for example, is you can then give vouchers of the supermarkets where they buy as an incentive for them to come back in again. So I think the way the platform has been managing and the QR codes, not just on the box, but even to the package itself is really to get to what I call closing the loop, right? So that, when you say, Oh, I got a very bad avocados, then the questions could be, where do you buy it? Where is it from? And then we can actually sort of see a bit of details, like maybe the storage wasn't good. And we could actually tell our distributors or our supermarket, maybe the cold chain was broken without actually, they even knew about it. So in that way, the whole sustainability, our goal and doing good becomes kind of like already in the platform. You know who you're buying from. You know the society, the village of the farmers and the smallholders that you're helping. And then at the same time, making sure that you're, if the cold chain was broken in one way or another, you know, making sure that you don't generate extra food waste that we have to throw away. So this, these are the kind of things that we've been doing. Talk to me a little bit more about that, because at the outset, you talked about the fact that over 30% of food that's grown goes to waste. So how, apart from finding cold chain issues, how else are you helping reduce that 30% figure? All right. So, so I'm, I'm going to, well, maybe for the audience, right? I, I, I'm going to basically sound like I'm going to be showing off, but I always think that this is like the best example that I could give in explaining the kind of data that people in, in our space, when we are trying to save the world, most of the time, we don't really have the data in our fingertips. So let me just read out an example of one single trade where we were able to trade just basically, it's already there in our platform. Let me give you an example. We move oranges to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. In that one example of that one trade, that journey was 7,183 nautical miles. And it was generating 1,826 kilograms CO2 equivalent of carbon footprint. It's coming from a 40 footer container weighing 21,850 kilogram, where there was an issue with the container generating 17.7% of a claim, resulting in a financial loss of $7,386. Generating additional carbon footprint of 323 kilogram of CO2 equivalent food waste equivalent of 3,867 kg worth of food waste. This is now captured in the platform. This is now being able to pull it out so that the food waste. If we have no claims and you do not have to do anything with it, so it will be just a normal journey and the carbon footprint would be the journey of the travel. But when you do have an issue with the quality, you will generate issues on claims. And when you generate issues or claims, a couple of things will result. One, of course, will be the financial loss to both sides of the party. When I say both sides, because at the end of the day, it's not just the claim against the supplier, because we have an example where containers of grapes that were sent from Greece was rejected by a major supermarket in Singapore. And when you have eight containers rejection, that means you have almost $500,000 worth of lost sales because there is no grapes on the floor, So that's one example. Then when you talk about the amount of waste that you have to then go into the disposal, the amount just to pick the goods, the amount just to send trucks to and pick it up and send it to the dump. That's extra carbon foot waste, and you can see that 30% is lost in terms of weight and the carbon footprint equivalent. That's where we really want to make sure that the data is there, the way we are doing it would also be able to prevent if you don't do this jack in the box idea of only realising what you know, at the end of the day, when you receive it, but being able to see. And manage the quality before you even ship it out. I think this would definitely be a much more sustainable approach in terms of encouraging less food waste and a more sustainable model. Shifting gears for a sec, you said you're supplying into as well the North American market quite considerably. We have a new administration there. They're imposing tariffs. How is that going to impact your business? Or is it? Oh, yeah. I mean, to be very honest, Since 2020, we have been impacted by COVID, and then from COVID onwards, we have been impacted by climate change. Then after that, we have impacts from the wars and different canals, from one canal closing and the next canal closing, you know. And then now, of course with the new administration, with the new rules, it's, it's affecting. But, but this is really where the opportunity comes in, because one of, one of the things, for example, is even when you basically have a 25% increase in tariffs, there are only certain places in the world that grows enough tomatoes to feed the North American market. And that happens to be in Mexico. So you're not going to overnight be able to change that infrastructure that was built for 30 years overnight. Then the second thing also happens when you do want to find an alternative, for example, not a Mexican avocado, but you want to get a Peruvian avocado or Colombian avocado. Then where do you find a right supplier that is able to be onboarded quickly and reliability, right? So this now allows us to also be able to give you that ability to source from a verifiable supplier a lot faster and sooner than before. So I guess the agility that is required in this kind of like uncertain environment is really what DiMuto is really gearing ourselves up because it's not just about the tariffs or what the Chinese can do. For example, the Chinese suddenly says that we are now going to check the MIL level of pesticides level from Vietnam. And suddenly the levels that they are requiring, it's a lot stringent compared to what used to be the level that they were actually allowing the pesticides to be at. So suddenly you're going to have this kind of issues where you're going to have Vietnamese durians that is actually not going to go into a market, the traditional they were. Or, for example, we have demands of blueberries that is basically could be a huge order, but suddenly our Peruvian growers have a weather issue, and now we have to switch to find a Moroccan supplier to fulfill that order. So, the administration, the changes that you talk, it's, it's basically on the ground that we need to be a lot nimble, because as you can imagine the day when we were setting our cucumbers, tomatoes, and green peppers, they say we're going to put in a 25% tariff and then we sort of like waited for a couple of hours and then suddenly a few hours later, no, the tariff is going to be postponed for a month. The impact and the condition of our produce actually is going to deteriorate every hour that we keep them or basically store them and it doesn't move along the way. So this is kind of like ensuring that we know what is condition when we pack it and we know that when you stop or when you do make a decision to hold back, the deterioration is not going to affect the transit time or the shelf lifetime. This is just another thing of like, the many uncertainty in our industry is very different from, pre COVID where we do have the ability to, you know, take a little bit of a chill walk going down the street. I think now that the ability to really know what's going on with a JIT mindset, that really is very much like what is in the semiconductor industry is not very applicable to our industry, except that we don't produce them in wafer fabs, and they are not perishable. Speaking of tariffs and regulations, for example, there's this regulation FISMA 204, for who are unfamiliar, you might explain what that is, and then, is that, do you think, the stick that finally gets industry moving on traceability, or is it just another compliance box to tick? Great, great, great question. Tom. All right. Because first of all, for those who do not know what FISMA 204 is, it's actually the Food Safety Management Act, where the US has basically come out a very stringent, yet logical way of ensuring that food safety is actually being managed, and they say that they were going to implement it by 2026. But I think since yesterday, they have actually extended it and say now it's coming in only in 2028. So, again, this unfortunate stick and the carrot is not going to be implemented quickly. And that's because the regulators understand that for this industry to really move, the stick is not really going to be good enough because unfortunately they still need to eat. So they rather eat the carrot rather than wait for you to receive the benefit of a carrot, you know, so, so I think that's kind of like the situation, but having said that I think where the industry is also changing is because the different generations have also come in from the past generation. So we have actually seen a lot of second generation, third generation come into the industry. That group has come in and say, look, I think. You know, the days where my grandfather and my your grandfathers are good friends and we build trust based on that. Well, I think that doesn't really work anymore, right? Let's, let's find a way to ensure that we, we get a way to start working together and do this. So instead of waiting for a stick to do the incentive to get us to start moving, maybe what we at DiMuto is really trying to show to the industries. Look, it's there. We built it, right? We spent 7 million building a technology that we're actually using it and we are sharing that benefit to our suppliers as well as to our buyers. So maybe that would be a better way to incentivise and get the industry moving. And if you're not going to move in then I think you'll probably be sort of like missing the bandwagon. So I, I think that's probably a much better way to incentivise this industry because the economic interest would be aligned because they did the correct thing, not because they got a stick to tell them like a FISMA 204. But if you do the proper things together, you will benefit it because operational efficiencies, less waste, less claims. That goes straight down to your bottom line. And then for the buyers, they would now be able to reduce that availability issues and being worried that they may not get the products in the store. And at the same time, they do not have to worry about the food safety issue because they now have the ability to do the necessary, necessary recall that was previously would have taken them a lot of time and effort. And most of the time, the industry has only one way of doing it that is through everything that they have received, regardless of where it came from, because that's the safest way. But if you could track it down to which factory, who packed it, when it was packed, when it was received, in which batch, and all the way down to the box, I think that, throwing away everything will not be the only way to do things, and that would change. So sorry to bevel on a little bit longer, but, but that's, I think it's a much better approach rather than just using a FISMA 204. Okay, good point. Good point. One of the things that growers often have to contend to is securing access to financing. Do you think that for smallholder farmers having access to technology will enable them to get easier access to capital? And you know, the fact that the, the digital divide is, is going away because they have access to this technology, will that open doors for them in terms of access to capital? Absolutely. And this is a very practical way to solve it because the only way that we could actually improve on and making access to capital, it is not getting capital players to come into our industry and hoping that they're going to do handouts just because they want to help the small holder farmers, because no one is going to do this for charity alone. The incentive must be aligned because they need to lend money and they need to make some money out of it. And the people who borrow the money, they need to pay it back. This must be quite fundamental on the economic incentive. The way DiMuto was actually built and set up, we've built it in such a way that we have three key pillars. One is the technology, which we call the trade management solution division. Then we have another division, which is the marketplace division, that basically selling the labels and our private labels that we have on the brand and the produce that we have. But we have also created a financial services to actually finance the trade that is happening between the buyers and the sellers. When you have that ability to see what is being grown, being packed and being shipped, and what's being received, the financing becomes a natural part and an extension of the trade. So what we have done in terms of making sure that the economic incentive is aligned is actually simple way of looking at it is the movement of the trade is the movement of goods on one direction and the movement of money going back. That is actually the two sides of the same coin. And that's the value of that trade. We see that by providing the financial incentives to what was being packed and the transparency that will be provided will allow us to actually support the smaller farmers in a way that previously was never supported before, because no one saw what was actually being done. And all we had was just the shipment of the goods and the claims and everybody's finger just pointed back and blamed the farmer for the work that they did. But in this case, we now have that ability to ensure that the incentive of how you pay, when you pay, to who you pay is a lot clearer because actually the work that was done is also a lot clearer. So I think to your question, we definitely see that when we put this technology to work, the economic incentive to the smaller farmers is definitely the way forward for them. And it's not something that they feel defenseless because in the past, they don't have that ability to show when they planted it, when they harvested, what are the work that they did. You know, the blood and sweat that they put in. I think this, this would definitely change once they actually change it from the pen and paper entry to an actually an entry that just can do it on their mobile phone. Makes sense. If you had unlimited resources and zero constraints, what's the dream innovation you'd build for the agri food supply chain? Well, the dream would be one where I think we are actually building at this point in time. We have limited resources. Definitely. ha true. We don't have, but with the limited resources. We're still chasing that dream, that, that dream of being able to have the marketplace AI that we have been doing, right? So we've used it, our resources to build AI. And we've been very fortunate to work with a partner like Google, who has probably more resources than we have to build an AI for our marketplace. And what that does is to basically imagine that a sourcing arm in a supermarket be able to say, look, I need to send avocados to the port in Baltimore and I need it to be sent from October to December and I need it in this weight, in this package. Which are the suppliers that will be able to provide us from house avocados, right? And I want it to be coming up from Columbia. So those would be the kind of things that we could actually be asking our marketplace AI, and then they actually be able to prompt it out and then be able to actually give it and even be able to calculate what kind of footprint that would be. If you buy it from this or you buy it from another person, right? Or a locally sourced situation. That would be the dream, right? But our dream extends further, which we again have built because there's sort of like a three key dreams that we have built using the limited resources that we have. And, and again, one, one of the resources that we have worked with is fortunately we're working with Intel on a, on our device to have on the edge AI so that we are able to actually calculate and be able to see the quality of the box of avocados or apples or bananas, before they even ship so that we can actually be able to see the size, the quality, the color, the blemish, right? And give a grading, so that we use the same algorithm to do a pre shipment algorithm and even a post shipment algorithm to see what kind of deterioration due to whatever factors they may be. And finally, the dream of ensuring that we now is able to scale the trade and be able to see what is the trade health between a buyer and a seller that have been working for a couple of years. You know, if they've been buying avocados, how long have they been receiving, the quality they've been receiving, whether there are any claims, the seasonality, and then also whether they pay on time, right? Is the payment schedule okay? And, and on top of it, to be able to put all this different AIs that we have to change the business model from one where we've been mostly reactive, to the situation on the ground to one that could actually be predictive. That would be the dream. The dream to take all the different variables that we have and the data points. Like I said, we have 3,400 data points in one single trade, but to put all these data points to have that dream, to be able to turn something that is reactive to something that is predictive. Then I think when we wanted to build something more sustainable and be something that it's going to be good for the world. less negative impact. It's measurable. And this is kind of like our purpose and our drive and our passion. didn't build this company just so that we can do the things we do. But at the end of the day, I really hope that the people in our company really have a desire and a passion to say that they can also make this world a better place if we could be a lot more efficient than throwing away 30% of the things that we grow. Great, great, great. A left field question, Gary. If, if you could have any person or character alive or dead, real or fictional as a champion for sustainable agriculture, who would it be and why? Wow! Who would that be that that I think would be great? Hmm. I think one one one key champion that I know is quite passionate about it is Leonardo DiCaprio, right? I think he's been talking a lot about, climate change or even Al Gore. Maybe I'll change. I'll change it to Al Gore. I haven't heard about him that much about it. But someone like Leonardo and Al Gore, someone who is basically in the public eye. understands that this world is, or even the likes of someone like Bill Gates, right? He's, he's also really trying to do a lot of good. So maybe I'll sum it up. Okay. Sorry, I was a bit greedy. I mentioned three individuals rather than one personality, but each of them are catering to different groups, like leonardo to the more, the younger the movie going, I think Al Gore for the political connections that he has, and someone like Bill Gates, someone who's really trying to change the world in the way he's looking at it. I think this would be the people I wish would be on the same board as me and look at the little things that we have been doing and being able to engage to actually tell the world that, yeah, you know, the change and the future is already here. But maybe don't be afraid of the future. Don't be afraid that this is going to be so disruptive that it's going to take you out of the business. If anything else, I think it's going to help you grow this business further. Okay. Super. Super. We're coming towards the end of the podcast. Now, Gary, is there any question I haven't asked that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of? I think you, you touch on so many great questions and a lot of touching parts. If I would probably be touching on is it's, it's how, how most people take their food for granted. Most of us just assume that the whole supply chain is not that complicated because you just have to go down to Whole Foods or you just have to go down to Walmart or you go down to a Coles or Sainsbury or Carrefour. Everything looks good. Everything is there, right? If you want to order your delivery, the Amazon fresh, just delivers everything through your doorsteps, right? So what is so complicated about this supply chain and this whole sustainability? It's it's something that most people probably are not aware. The pain the tears of that journey of the produce to make that beautiful apple appear to you and to your family. It's probably something that most people do take for granted and may not be aware of the severity of it. And let me give another example like when we say of the number of 1800 kilogram of CO2 equivalent people think there's just a number of carbon footprint, but but that is actually equivalent to having 10 mature trees absorbing that just one container load of carbon footprint, right? So imagine a number of containers going around the world, right? So fast to adopt that kind of carbon footprint is not something that easy to have those kind of trees, and it takes you 10 years to grow a tree like that, right? So I think the impact and the way the public takes certain things for granted would be probably something that I would like that maybe that kind of awareness. The pain and the sweat that the people in the agri trade actually go through, it's, it's probably maybe an area that is probably not that well known to general public. But it's probably something that we can actually share as well. Okay. Good point. Good point. Okay. Gary, if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed in the podcast today, where would you have me direct them? Well, the best place for us, ladies and gentlemen, would be Gary Loh at, you know, LinkedIn would be the best place for you to actually reach out to me. And of course our website, which is dimuto. io would be the next best place for you to know more about us, know what we do, and I guess the best thing is also to have people with like mindedness, in how we all want to change the world. You know, I've always had that line, right? People may call me a dreamer. But I'm sure I'm not the only one, but that's kind of like, I hope you could reach out to us and then basically work to us together on that. Fantastic. Gary, that's been really interesting. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today. No Tom, thank you again for this opportunity and thank you everyone. Okay. Thank you all for tuning into this episode of the Sustainable Supply Chain Podcast with me, Tom Raftery. Each week, thousands of supply chain professionals listen to this show. If you or your organization want to connect with this dedicated audience, consider becoming a sponsor. You can opt for exclusive episode branding where you choose the guests or a personalized 30 second ad roll. It's a unique opportunity to reach industry experts and influencers. For more details, hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIn, or drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com. Together, let's shape the future of sustainable supply chains. Thanks. Catch you all next time.