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In late October, Australia’s Two Hands digital marketplace completed its first blockchain traceable shipment of Southern Rock Lobster. The expedition left Melbourne on a Thursday and arrived in Shanghai the next day.
The shipment was tracked using GoTrace software. Initially, Two Hands had plans to expand its ledger tracking and tracing solution deployed on Hyperledger Fabric. However, they decided to pursue a private implementation of GoChain’s blockchain instead, where it launched a new version of its digital marketplace, the Two Hands Marketplace. GoChain is a variant of Ethereum.
The solution involves attaching a SmartTag to each lobster, which can then be scanned to track it on GoChain’s GoTrace software. The buyer buys individual lobsters, at which point a “travel itinerary” is written on GoTrace. As seafood makes its way up the supply chain, the itinerary is validated using the GoTrace app.
In May, the company announced plans to implement the GoChain public blockchain protocol and GoTrace supply chain management platform to track and trace lobster shipments.
Its activity aims to eliminate intermediaries to mitigate inefficiencies and fraud in the chain. By excluding intermediaries in the supply chain and facilitating links between producers, restaurants and direct consumers, the Two Hands market generates cost savings of around 20% along the entire supply chain.
Consumer demand for food traceability is increasing. A recent study by the IBM Institute for Business Value, corroborated by previous research from the Food Marketing Institute, found that 73% of consumers will pay a premium for full product transparency. IBM Food Trust is one of the largest blockchain food traceability initiatives in the world and recently increased its reach with olive oil suppliers in Argentina and Spain and a Bangladeshi project for fish traceability.
Meanwhile, other blockchain initiatives are using the technology to address other problems in the food industry. Regulatory body MarinTrust supports a blockchain traceability initiative for seafood by-products with the expectation that it will prevent the waste of seafood and reduce illegal or undeclared fishing. There are numerous other blockchain projects for fish and seafood.
