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Blockchain can speed up the shipment of food and identify contaminated food before it is sold.
December
19, 2018
5 minutes of reading
Opinions expressed by Business owner the contributors are theirs
In recent months, consumers have witnessed a series of food distribution disasters: lettuce has been recalled in 11 states and in Canada after over 30 people have reported diseases; about 6.5 million pounds of various beef products have been reported to possibly contain salmonella; and more than 89,000 pounds of ready-made hams were recalled due to listeria contamination.
In 2017 alone, there were more than 400 appeals issued by the US Department of Agriculture and the US Food and Drug Administration. The same year, the US Department of Agriculture recalled more than 20 million pounds of product.
The solution to these contamination problems is not years away. It is here now and many companies are already implementing it, blockchain technology. Wal-Mart, for example, is already using blockchain to track all lettuce shipments in its more than 6,300 stores. And by January 31, 2019, all direct lettuce suppliers will be officially obliged to use the blockchain to trace the lettuce from the farm to the shelves.
Related: Why Blockchain Belongs to the courtroom
Blockchain allows Wal-Mart to track its products at every stage of the shipping system, following the product from the factory to a single truck to a single store and ultimately to specific consumers. Tamper-proof sensors inputs and recordings mitigate the risk of food being stored under improper conditions. Furthermore, the use of smart contracts accelerates the loading process, which in turn reduces the manual process that would otherwise take hours. This shortens the window that food may be exposed to improper environments and lowers the risk of contamination.
This not only rationalizes an obsolete shipping network, reducing waste and saving both society and consumer money in the process, but blockchain could help to identify the exact distribution of dirty products. During Thanksgiving in 2017, Cargill started a blockchain program to allow consumers to see where their Turkey comes from – literally from one farm to another. Enter the ID of your turkey on a website and see everything from where it was collected, to the path that led to the store. Increased visibility allows for greater granularity, reducing the risk that every single product at the national level should be destroyed and reducing the risk of people consuming contaminated food solely because of the fact that we have no idea how to separate the contaminated from the safe. Although we can not identify it in single units due to items collected in bulk (think of apples in a container when they can not be labeled each), we can increase visibility through smaller, more detailed batch tracking.
Related: heck is Blockchain? Watch this explanatory video.
Wal-Mart can now track cargo records, geographical points and other basic information to know the specific locations of the contaminated products and systematically drag them. The result: Wal-Mart states that blockchain technology has reduced tracking efforts from days to seconds, reducing consumer exposure to contaminated food.
The risk, however, is that other retailers do not want to play well with Wal-Mart's blockchain system. Why should they deliver their supplier and supply chain information? This puts manufacturers, producers and transporters in difficulty, due to the risk of having to adopt multiple fractured systems without standardization. Many, including myself, believe that independent public blockchain systems without a license like Ethereum are the answer to this problem.
The government, on the other hand, was slow to update its response, leaving consumers with the same dysfunction: the initial report of the contaminated product, the ambiguity about where the product was shipped and the confusion about who has had an impact. The result: grocery stores frantically pull objects off the shelves, often too late in the process. Consumers are anxiously asking whether objects in their freezers are safe and, worst, people get sick.
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This obsolete system fails in two main ways: firstly, it creates waste, with individuals outside the contamination zone throwing off good products out of fear; and, more importantly, it creates a diffused hysteria, the opposite of what any public health notification system should do. Further information helps to quell fear and provide tranquility.
In response to these growing challenges, the F.D.A and the Department of Agriculture have promulgated a new policy in their efforts to protect consumers: to name the dealers, in addition to the contaminated product, in their public announcements. But this additional step still paints a picture too broad and does nothing to solve the main problem of providing consumers with information to understand if the product they have purchased is contaminated or safe.
We live in a time when the technological solutions available can simplify the national and global shipping logistics, while helping to protect people's lives. Blockchain technology is the way of the future, and we will all be healthier and have a little more peace of mind because of that.
