Walmart to integrate blockchain-based tracking system to ensure food safety

Making food safety its first priority, retail giant Walmart has wasted no time in asking its suppliers of leafy greens to start using blockchain in order to ensure “real-time, end-to-end traceability from farm to table” and to “speed up identifying, researching and reacting to food safety situations.” In a statement published on Monday on the company’s website, the retail giant asked its suppliers of leafy green produce to integrate a blockchain-based tracking system built in collaboration with IBM by September 2019. 2018 has seen a huge outbreak of E. coli in romaine lettuce and a number of other products and this has prompted Walmart to waste no time and spring to action. The statement reads: “It’s crucial to respond quickly and accurately to food safety issues like these. But with the traditional paper-based method of capturing information that exists at many farms, packing houses and warehouses, tracking down important data from multiple sources is extremely time-consuming.” Blockchain changes everything Frank Yiannas, VP of Food Safety at Walmart explains: “The food system is absolutely too large for any single entity to [track]. But blockchain changes everything. We’ve been working with IBM to digitize that, so the information is captured on the farm with a handheld system. It’s [also] captured at the packing house at the supplier.” According to the report, Walmart plans to use the power of blockchain to speed up identifying, researching and reacting to food safety situations. Reacting to this news, Robert Tauxe, director of CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases said, “Enhanced ability to trace a contaminated food back to its source will help government agencies and companies to identify the source of a foodborne disease outbreak, coordinate more effective recalls of foods thought to be contaminated and learn where past problems began.” “We think these steps will strengthen future prevention efforts and better protect the public’s health from the threat of foodborne illness,” he added. “When it comes to safety, this is not a competitive issue. We all win or lose together,” concludes Yiannas. See Also: Blockchain-based medical record system patented by Walmart Walmart will use Blockchain technology for its food business Image via Shutterstock Join our Telegram group