Overall, Phase 1 provided time and resources to understand the technical and business viability of Supp.li. In particular, following aspects were assessed and provided valuable insights:
• The current state of the food and HORECA industry was researched, with its implications in socio-economic context. Large retail players and ecommerce companies dominate the distribution channel between small producers, distributors with Buyers on the HORACA sector.
• Via Supp.li Sellers from the European F&B industry (€1,048 trillion business opportunity) can sell their product to Buyers in the HORECA industry.
• Furthermore, it was decided that there is an immense potential to use the platform to connect European producers with Chinese Buyers, therefore Supp.li started to focus its efforts to enter onto the Chinese market. There is no such solution today, while Chine is the most important market in the world.
• Supp.li platform connects Sellers (food producers, SMEs, distributors) with Buyers from the HORECA sector. Its Value Proposition offers a unique and perfect match to solve the pain of Sellers and Buyers.
• During Phase 1, hundreds of contacts and discussions took place with diverse stakeholders from these markets, who helped the Team to understand the desired MVP that will be commercialized and confirmed the market viability of the future service.
• Supp.li platform has been since the Phase 1 application launched for market test in Hungary and Poland. During Phase 1, Supp.li Kft. recycled and used these first results to prepare the plan of further development and upscale of the platform, to achieve all Functional Requirements and enter new markets. The Team defined Use cases, Concept of Operations, Architecture and detailed key functional scenarios, such as the alcohol and excise duty handling.
• The up-to-date comparison with available solutions confirmed that Supp.li is the first of its art, therefore delivers European innovation with a global impact.
• During Phase 1, Supp.li leveraged the coaching of the SME Instrument to shape and update the go-to-market strategy in Europe and China, as well as exposed them to European initiatives, like the EIT Food.
• At the end of Phase 1, Supp.li Kft. was able to define the product development plan for the platform, which fits perfectly into the SME Instrument Phase 2 scheme. The cost of the platform to develop and commercialize was estimated as €3.5M. Supp.li also researched the applicable regulations to consider (GDPR, EU tax, etc). Project risk analysis was performed.
During Phase 1, dozens of discussions took place with potential users and re-sellers based on which InnoSec was able to better define the objectives and the next steps. In summary, Phase 1 convinced the management of InnoSec to further pursue the idea and to prepare next steps towards the product development, to be conducted with the help of Phase 2 of the Horizon 2020 grant scheme.
