Supply chain

Business

Food chain

Nanotechnology

Food safety

Biology

Software engineering

Engineering

Marketing

Paleontology

Traceability

Materials science

Blockchain

Cold chain

Transparency (behavior)

Computer science

Food science

Computer security

Mechanical engineering

The Journal of British Blockchain Association

In response to food contamination scandals worldwide, retail giant Walmart is tackling food safety in the supply chain using blockchain technology. In 2016, it established the Walmart Food Safety Collaboration Center in Beijing and plans to invest $25 million over five years to research global food safety (Yiannas and Liu, 2017). Using IBM’s blockchain solution based on Hyperledger Fabric, Walmart has successfully completed two blockchain pilots: pork in China and mangoes in the Americas (IBM, 2017). With a farm-to-table approach, Walmart’s blockchain solution reduced time for tracking mango origins from seven days to 2.2 seconds and promoted greater transparency across Walmart’s food supply chain (Yiannas, 2017). IBM called it “complete end-to-end traceability” (McDermott, 2017). The case highlights the challenges of implementing blockchain technology in the food supply chain and the opportunities for deploying blockchain solutions throughout the global food ecosystem to increase safety and reduce waste.

Food Traceability on Blockchain: Walmart’s Pork and Mango Pilots with IBM