By Yesterday we reported that the Dairy Farmers Of America (DFA) was to trial blockchain technology in order for their customers to track products purchased. We mentioned that this comes after an announcement from Walmart in which they decided to start forcing their fresh produce suppliers to start using blockchain technology in a similar fashion after a recent E.coli breakout.
Let’s take a closer look as to this announcement made by one of the world’s largest retailers.
Walmart recently advised their suppliers of leafy green produce to implement blockchain technology in order to trace the movement of products under their “Food Traceability Initiative”. They also requested that these suppliers have the system in place as early as a year from now.
This came shortly after Walmart send a letter to their suppliers detailing the multi-state outbreak that had taken resulted in 210 confirmed cases of E.coli with 96 people being hospitalized and 5 people passing away. With blockchain technology, these outbreaks could be prevented as real-time information will be available about products from as far as supply chains right to farm to table.
Food Traceability Processes Are Outdated:
Walmart’s letter also called out the existing model – the one step up and one step back model of tracing food outdated.
If a product is flagged and possibly contains E.coli or Salmonella, consumers might not know if a similar product they bought might be contaminated or not.
During the E.coli outbreak, consumers and retail grocers had to dispose of large amounts of romaine lettuce as they couldn’t be sure if the lettuce they received was indeed contaminated or not. The CDC (Center of Disease Control) advised consumers to avoid any lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona, when in fact none of the bags sold that might have been contaminated came from the region.
Walmart’s Frank Yiannas, the Vice President of food safety at Walmart stated that the outdated traditional paper-based information gathering systems at farms makes it difficult for to track essential data from a variety of sources not mention that its also extremely time consuming and can take up to a week to track a product. The process involves contacting suppliers, acquiring paper records, and contacting the shipping companies or import company that sent the products to a Walmart Distribution centre. 
And this process needs to be repeated 70,000 odd times for all the food products stocked in one store! Walmart has called for their new requirement to roll out in two phases. Direct suppliers need to implement the one-step-back traceability on their blockchain network by 30 January 2019. Following that date Walmart expects suppliers to be on their vertical system or to work with them on the end to end traceability system by 30 September 2019.
Product Origins Will Become Transparent To Consumers:
The near future will see blockchain technology giving the customers the means to scan a product and trace it right back to its origin. Yiannas stated that Walmart has been working with IBM to digitize this process in order to capture information at the farm source with handheld devices at packing houses or distribution centres.
The CDC’s Doctor Robert Tauxe, Director at the Division of foodborne, waterborne and environmental diseases, said that this improved system of tracking and tracing food to its source will be of great help to agencies and companies in order to identify the sources of outbreaks.
With Walmart pushing for blockchain technology do you think that other huge corporations could follow? Let us know your thoughts.
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