Blockchain will ensure the food quality in your local store: IBM to make digital food tracking

The revolutionary blockchain project is currently being developed by IBM in cooperation with Walmart, Dole, Nestle, other food companies and Chinese Tsinghua University in Beijing. The main goal of this project is to improve the world’s food supply chain.

Blockchain, while it may seem to be an exclusively financial instrument due to its fame as the foundation of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, has some remarkably good verification technologies and solutions in its core. They allow instant checkback with all members of the food supply chain and their data. The accounting potential of blockchain is unmatched, especially when using the Distributed Ledger Technology, or DLT.

According to Business Insider, this particular technology will give an opportunity to check at what stage and in which particular location the product became contaminated, preventing the spreading of illnesses or plant pests. And thus, naturally, it should prove useful for those companies the products of which are perishable – like dairy or food grain. By the way, Australian companies already consider using similar technology in grain and oats supplies.

As for this IBM-developed technology, some food corporations already made it clear they are very keen to see how this tech is applicable and that they hope it will improve their businesses. As Frank Yiannas, the VP of food safety in Walmart, put it: "Blockchain technology enables a new era of end-to-end transparency in the global food system," stating further that it also gives all parties an opportunity “to share information rapidly and with confidence across a strong trusted network”. This latter sentiment about strong trusted network is shared by many companies across the globe: seems like the market needed something like blockchain for a long time.