New technologies are ready to help here. Take for example food. Do you know what distance the average American meal travels from farm to plate? About 1,500 miles. Food miles, the distance food travels from the place it has been grown to where it is ultimately consumed or purchased, increase significantly when buyers import food from other parts of the country, region or world. And it’s a waste of time and money.

Take another aspect. Wasted food on grocery store shelves. Every night, some perishable items such as bread must be thrown out. According to a recent survey, 400 million pounds of food is served by supermarkets, yet nearly a third of it is wasted annually. In addition to the sheer lack of responsibility, especially when hunger continues to be such a global issue, is the loss of profitability due to the power of retailers’ dominating the supply chain simply because they control negotiation discussions. It’s a waste of time and money as well.

5 Key Problems

With a help of blockchain technology the INS team wants to solve 5 key problems of current consumer goods market.

Overpricing . INS project will have a positive impact in the lives of people across the world, given that groceries account for up to 50% of a consumer’s wallet. Retailers’ monopoly . Manufacturers struggling to get direct access to consumers, as the former cannot break through on store shelves in retail stores, while having excellent products that would have received a strong demand from consumers. Extended supply chain . Supply chain in grocery retail is obsolete. Wholesalers and retailers developed in the second half of 19th century should be replaced with technology in the 21st century. Choice limits . Consumers and manufacturers deserve the free choice that is not influenced by retailers and the way they conduct business. Obsolete templates . Disrupting with blockchain is the paradigm shift. While the idea of disintermediating the retailers is not new, the advent of smart contracts and blockchain will help us make it a reality.

How the INS ecosystem works

Through INS , consumers will buy grocery goods directly from manufacturers, saving up to 30% on purchases. Manufacturers will be able to offer easily customizable promotion and loyalty programs, and receive direct feedback from consumers. INS tokens facilitate transactions – Ecosystem participants will use the INS token to transact, eliminating costly retail chains, reducing prices, enhancing security and privacy, and greatly improving user experience. How INS will make money – The revenues of the INS Foundation will come from the following 2 sources: (1) a small transaction fee as a reward for maintenance of the INS own blockchain and creating smart contracts, and (2) a distribution center fee in the cities where the INS Foundation will establish the physical infrastructure (we plan to put distributions centers into operation on our own in the first 10 cities and then search for independent distribution center operators to expand the ecosystem in other cities).

About INS

A new 2017 project conducted by the 35-strong Instamart team called INS is ready to save time of manufacturers and money of consumers. It’s aimed to build an accessible ecosystem enabling consumers to buy directly from high-quality grocery manufacturers at lower prices.” The INS team has 50+ years of combined experience in the grocery industry. In 2013 we founded Instamart, the leading same-day grocery delivery service in Russia. Since then, we have validated consumer interest, received strong support from manufacturers and developed the roadmap to build the INS ecosystem.