Walmart to Implement Blockchain for Food Products

Walmart is about to apply the blockchain technology for food products tracking, announced Reuters the other day. The chain is required to follow its leafy green vegetables and other cuisine items all the way from the farm to the store where delivered.

The decision came on Monday after the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised the company to improve their traceability. In the recent years, many cases of diseases and even death by food product related issues had occurred and it seems the American authorities find it hard to track the problems’ original roots. That is the reason, Walmart to be faced with the trackability problem since its system is too old-fashioned and sometimes ends up with a pen and a paper. The research, conducted on the case, showed that the procedure of tracing a food’s origin could last up to a week.

CDC’s official data states for at least five people who died of an E.coli infection, more than a hundred from different states were hospitalized and more than two hundred were infected by the outbreak. In the core of the problem, according to the Center, lays probably the last shipments of romaine lettuce.

Therefore, Walmart would have to think more about the public health, delivering accurate information about the sources and the road of the food. The firm has decided to use the blockchain technology specifically because it would allow multiple suppliers to submit reports on food genesis simultaneously. Walmart is going to join IBM on their blockchain project and will implement a computer system, which will use a shared record in a network. The aim is to increase safety levels and to trail food movement.

The change is supposed to happen by next September. In the last months, Walmart works effectively on high tech systems, striving to improve their deliveries, the management of smart appliances and the healthcare information system.

The same move was executed last year by Nestle and Tyson Foods, other giant food producers and suppliers. Similarly, they both signed a contract with IBM for a new Ethereum-based computer system.