Food traceability: blockchain features in new projects

The last few days have seen a series of new and updated projects featuring blockchain used for food and produce traceability. Here’s a round-up of recent developments:

- GS1 US has completed a proof-of-concept study which has demonstrated that four different food traceability systems supplied by different providers were able to exchange information as products travel along the supply chain by using GS1 standards. The systems used blockchain, cloud and other traceability technology from FoodLogiQ, IBM Food Trust, ripe.io and SAP. The next phase of the pilot will involve suppliers, distributors, retailers and foodservice operators participate and cover additional elements like permissioning, privacy and access controls.

- VeChain has announced a partnership with China’s Shenzhen Yuhongtai Foods Co on a blockchain-based traceability project for pork products, which uses a QR code on the label to direct to a landing page that provides “origin, processing flow, logistics information, date of packaging, as well as marketing information”. Shenzhen Yuhongtai will use VeChain’s ToolChain product to allow traceability of pork products sold by its wholly-owned subsidiary Meijiada Fresh Foods. Meijiada sells premium pork products made from hogs that are fed on special diets including corn, soybeans, and hawthorn.

- Norwegian farmed salmon producer Kvarøy Arctic has joined the IBM Food Trust to enable blockchain traceability of its products. The move will enable its corporate customers, such as certain Whole Foods Market stores in the US and Canada, and selected restaurants to view the provenance of fish by scanning a QR code. Buyers will be able to download images and video of the farms and see for themselves the conditions and animal welfare standards to which the company adheres. The announcement comes shortly after US-based California Giant Berry Farms announced it has started using IBM Food Trust blockchain for its berry supply chains.

- Nestle’s coffee subsidiary Nespresso has started using a blockchain system to enable customers to trace the origin of Zimbabwe-sourced coffee from farms to its production centre in Switzerland, according to a report on LedgerInsights.com. Nespresso says it has had a traceability system in place for Zimbabwean coffee since 2003, but has only recently added in the blockchain element and opened it up to the public.

- The Telos Foundation has announced a partnership with startup All_EBT to host digital food stamps traceability Telos’ EOS-based blockchain platform. The initiative allows recipients of electronic benefit transfers (EBT) to spend those benefits online using online grocery services – a facility that has become ever more important in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. ALL_EBT says that almost one in four of the US population rely on food stamps.

- Indian fresh food supply specialist Ninjacart has launched FoodPrint, which it describes as a complete food traceability infrastructure that captures the end-to-end footprint traceability of fruits and vegetables which moves from farm to home. “This is our first, but significant step towards ensuring food safety for India’s billion people,” says the company. “For every product you buy from Ninjacart, we can tell you the farmer details, warehouses that handled the produce, the truck that carried the item to stores and more,” it asserts.