Blockchain Technology usage by Walmart
There are many issues in the food supply chain, like inefficiencies, frauds, and scandals. Mostly these issues arise due to lack of trust and transparency within the food supply chain and fail to give the consumers a sense of assurance about the quality of the food being consumed by them.
Blockchain, a shared-ledger technology embeds trust in this system, thereby improving the transparency and efficiency of the supply chain. Yielding mutually beneficial outcomes and competitive advantages, blockchain adoption holds great potential in the agri-food sector by connecting the following stakeholders directly.
The structure of BlockchainBlockchain ensures that each of these players along the food value chain, would generate and securely share data points to create an accountable and traceable system. Vast data points with labels that clarify ownership can be recorded promptly without any alteration. As a result, the record of a food item’s journey, from farm to table, is available to monitor in real-time providing end-to-end traceability.
In 2016, Walmart demonstrated that BlockchainBlockchain was a viable way to deal with food traceability and authenticity using 2 POCs which are
Mangoes and Traceability
Pork and authenticity
Mangoes and Traceability :
Mango production involves a long and complex supply chain with many stakeholders involved. Frank Yiannas, in one of their meetings, wanted to find out the farm from which a box of mangoes that he picked up from a Walmart store came from. It took around seven days for his team to finally identify the farm after contacting several other stakeholders in the supply chain. However, he found it useful as per industry’s standard it was unacceptable in this digital age.
But with IBM’s blockchain solution in place, Walmart was able to track down information of the source of mangoes within 2.2 seconds, from 7 days. Two significant advantages that Walmart and IBM proved was the ability to provide product visibility from farm to store and food traceability at the speed of thought. Having quick access to accurate tracking information of food products helps the company in reducing the effect of a disease outbreak or contamination, reducing unnecessary waste, and the economic burden of recalls.
The lucrative part is that the system can be further exploited to collect additional data about the food impacting the food quality and safety for consumption, apart from ensuring greater transparency and traceability. Also, the increased visibility led to fact-finding rather than fault-finding and led to improved safety and quality for customers.
Pork and Authenticity :
The fact was further understated that Blockchain can be used to reaffirm the confidence of consumers about the quality rather than the more visible advantage of Blockchain. The same is understood using pork example.
Prior to POC, the information on the label of pork was limited. For POC a QR code was added which allowed the trusted user to verify the traceability and authenticity and on scanning provided critical information and the correct route of pork. Human involvement in the process was eliminated, reducing errors and increasing trust levels. Veterinary Certificates are scanned to Blockchain and provide instant access to permission to food safety professionals. This increased trust and authenticity in the food system in China.
With the opening up of the economy, the food supply system has become all the more complicated. And therefore, it increases the risk of safety and quality of food and calls for a more transparent and informed food supply system. This, in turn, makes the people led and technology-enabled collaboration in this area all the more important. Food transparency will benefit all the stakeholders along the entire food continuum and alienate the anonymity from the system. Blockchain technology has the ability to revolutionize the food supply system and make a safer, smarter, and sustainable solution while benefiting consumers with better safety, quality and a lesser price.
DISCLAIMER
Shaastra TechShots’ publications contain information, opinions and data that Shaastra TechShots considers to be accurate based on the date of their creation and verified sources available at that time. It does not constitute either a personalized opinion or a general opinion of Shaastra or IIT Madras. The information provided comes from the best sources, however, Shaastra TechShots cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions that may emerge.