Walmart intends to sell leafy greens with traceability through blockchain technology in the next year.
On Monday, a press release was published indicating that the biggest retailer of the world, both in terms of its revenue and the number of employees, requested it leafy green produce suppliers to be incorporated as of September 2019 in a blockchain-based tracking system established along with IBM.
The letter clearly stated that each and every company working with Walmart have to work with the IBM Food Trust for creating end-to-end traceability in two stages. The blockchain platform will facilitate Walmart’s sourcing any food related items, and the release noted that under current circumstances, “an almost insurmountable challenge” is trying to trace such items.
This was resulted from an E. coli outbrake from Arizona early in this year. The Center for Disease Control’s authorities told consumers to avoid lettuces from near the Yuma city, and Walmart’s food safety vice president Frank Yiannas noted that the customers have had tough times to make sure where their produce is from.
Additionally, he stated:
“None of the bags of salad had ‘Yuma, Arizona’ on them. In the future, using the technology we’re requiring, a customer could potentially scan a bag of salad and know with certainty where it came from.”
The direct suppliers will be required with the first stage of the roll-out to establish “one-step back traceability” at the end of January. Those companies having their own suppliers will have to get vertically integrated with the network by the end of September 2019.
According to the letter, “To assist you in meeting this new Walmart business requirement, we have worked closely with IBM and other food companies to create a user-friendly, low-cost, blockchain-enabled traceability solution that meets our requirements and creates shared value for the entire leafy green farm to table continuum.”
As reported earlier, in the past, most evidently in a tender to shore up the overall pig product quality in China, Walmart has employed blockchain for food-tracking use.
