SYDNEY, June 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese diners who enjoy a prime Australian steak could soon explore the story behind their meal in augmented reality, thanks to an initiative by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and a group of outback students.
This year, high school students from the cattle farming community of Mount Gambier in South Australia have been learning how to use digital platforms to tell the story of their community product, from paddock to plate.
QUT researcher Jock McQueenie who is coordinating the project explained that the information will be displayed through augmented reality from a QR code on a menu or packaging when the produce gets to China.
"The idea is that the storytelling would pop up from a menu via the app or a barcode," McQueenie told Xinhua on Tuesday.
The digital storytelling component is part of a larger project funded by the Australian government and operated by BeefLedger, which tracks beef products from the feedlots of rural Australia to consumers in China.
"What they're trying to do is to use high tech credentialing and blockchain technology to track Australian beef from the feedlot to the plate in China," McQueenie said.
That process generates a large amount of data including transportation, weight, packaging and so on, which the students can utilise in their digital displays for the consumer.
"So the Chinese consumer will not only be able to see from the data the credentials of the beef, they know exactly what the beef has been through its entire journey and they will be able to get an authentic local voice telling the story of the community that produced it," McQueenie said.
Last month, the students welcomed a delegation of chefs and restaurant owners from the city of Changshu, near Shanghai, to their community in Mount Gambier, cooking together and exchanging their experiences of what occurs at each end of this unique partnership.
The chefs were enlightened as to where their produce comes from, while the students got a better understanding of what customers expect from Aussie beef.
Involving the students in this project, McQueenie said, is multifaceted and invaluable to their education across science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), as well as cultural and geographic studies.
The concept is expected to be completed and rolled out before the end of this year while the students continue to tweak and refine their message to customers.
"To be honest, there's a creative process and we don't even know what that will look like yet except that it will be based in narrative and data," McQueenie said.
"And it will speak to the Chinese consumer about Mount Gambier."
