What is ApiTrace?

ApiTrace is an innovative traceability system providing beekeepers in sub-Saharan Africa with a fair income for their honey, by providing access to wholesale markets to rural communities and making honey traceable from hive to supermarket shelf. This is achieved through the innovative use of IT, whereby every hive is registered to the ApiTrace system and given a unique QR code after being successfully inspected by an ApiTrace bee inspector. Once verified, the beekeeper is then eligible to sell their honey into the wholesale market at their local Honey Processing Hub (HPH), where they will be paid instantly through a digital payment gateway, verified by biometric ID to prevent fraud and intimidation to ensure that only the beekeeper gets paid for their honey.

Honey is brought by the beekeeper to the HPH in barrels embedded with Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags that are scanned along every step of the supply chain. ApiTrace adds value by providing wholesalers with bulk supplies of African honey, of consistent quality and quantity that has been tested for common contaminants, so that all honey processed through the HPH is export ready.

ApiTrace is addressing 14 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), these SDGs include No Poverty (#1) Gender Equality (#4), Decent Work & Economic Growth (#8), and Life on Land (#15), among others. Because only a small amount of land is needed to keep bees, ApiTrace will create opportunities that are accessible to all, providing equal opportunities to all groups, in particular women and young people in groups that may otherwise be marginalised. To ensure that these opportunities are accessible to all, the ApiTrace app is currently available in English, Swahili, and French, and is readily translatable into any language.

The environmental and ecological benefits of honey bees are well documented and publicised and by carrying out their beekeeping activities, beekeepers will also be generating invaluable big data on their local flora, climate and weather patterns, and pesticide usage in their local area, which can be used by governments, academic institutions, and other agencies to inform future policy and climate mitigation strategies.