Categories: Blockchain

Food giants announce blockchain partnership

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Ten of the world’s biggest food companies have teamed up to create a blockchain-based system tracking supplies from the farm to store shelves.

Walmart, Nestlé, Dole Food, Driscoll’s, Golden State Foods, Kroger, McCormick, McLane, Tyson Foods and Unilever are partners in Food Trust, aimed at reducing product recall times as well as making the supply chain more efficient.

IBM is the tech partner in the venture, which currently stores information about a million food products. Initial testing is said to have been successful.

“You’re capturing real-time data at every point, on every single food product. It’s the equivalent of FedEx tracking for food,” says Walmart Vice President of Food Safety Frank Yiannas, who gives the example of tracking down a shipment of mangoes from Mexico, sold in a Walmart store Stateside, which took 2.2 seconds, instead of the traditional barcode and paper receipts method which took a week.

Olivier Acuña

Olivier has been writing for over 30 years. He has been based in six countries working for major news outlets including the Guardian, UPI & AP. He has covered massive earthquakes, presidential elections, immigration, and taken photos standing in the middle of shootouts between drug cartels, gone undercover to investigate organised crime, interviewed presidents, former presidents, heads of international organisations.