The coronavirus crisis will boost broader trends towards increased digitization and traceability, according to the founder of a globally focused seafood trading app.
Anton Trantin, the co-founder of YORSO, a Russian start-up with European, Japanese, and U.S. advisors and investors, told SeafoodSource while many companies are still trying to determine the impact the coronavirus outbreak has had on their business, some are looking at the disruption in business to make changes to improve their operations moving forward.
“In the first two to three weeks [during the COVID-19 crisis], people were in a great panic trying to save core business, but afterwards they started thinking about digital and finding a way to sell directly to consumer with e-commerce without retail,” Trantin said. “Even though now most seafood businesses continue to focus on core operations, this digital seed finally started to grow and we see more traffic and more people registering in the system and asking help - without readiness to pay, which is understandable.”
YORSO is a supply chain management platform to help seafood producers, distributors, and catering executives to automate marketing, sales, purchases, and logistics. But while YORSO was registering rapid growth last year, this year has been tougher as the start-up has taken a battering from the coronavirus.
“The firm is still on track in terms of the product, though corona ‘killed’ us quite strongly,” Trantin said. “We lost many clients, many potential clients refused to continue even just thinking on something new for now.”
At the same time, the firm has been seeing some new traffic and requests “from those who believe now is the right time to think about the future.”
“So we focus our efforts with this companies and thinking that by end of 2020 markets will start recovering,” he said.
The crisis has forced YORSO to adapt its business plan and scale back on its hopes for expansion, Trantin said.
“We have money to keep the core product and business team to deliver a better product and satisfy customers who are still with us,” said Trantin. “We were thinking on making some B2C delivery and e-commerce solutions, but decided finally to not spread the focus and just become better in what we do. So basically, we are using this as a ‘pause’ to improve.”
A shift to online will also mean demand for traceability will increase, Trantin said.
“End consumers will start asking, ‘Where does it come from? What are the food safety standards?” And it will make the shift into traceability demand happen,” he said.
Trantin said it’s possible another trend to emerge from the crisis move toward de-globalization, a change already emerging as a trend in other industries.
“The supply chains are broken and this is a fact,” he said. “To avoid this, businesses will search how to diversify or quickly switch the chain for the firm’s own safety. And this is exactly a target for digital. I’m not sure if de-globalization will occur immediately just because of the demand habits, but local producers will look at new ways to achieve more benefit and market penetration.”
Photo courtesy of Anton Trantin/Twitter
