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When you buy fish, do you trust that what you bought is advertised at the point of sale? According to the New York State Attorney General's Office, there is a good chance that what you have purchased is not the same species as the one specified on the label. There could be a very promising solution to what the attorney general's office calls "rampant" fish labeling errors, though: blockchain technology.
The attorney general's office bought fish from 155 stores of 29 brands of supermarkets across the state, then sent them to a laboratory for testing. A considerable number of specimens, more than one in four, or 27%, was not what the supermarkets said they were. The complete results of the experiment are found here, with this conclusion:
"While the wrong labeling has affected virtually every category of fish tested, there has been a wrong mislabeling of some species.The results suggest that consumers who buy lemon, snapper and grouper sole are more likely to receiving a completely different fish, consumers who bought what was advertised as "wild" salmon often received farm-raised salmon, which often paid more money, on average 34% more, to avoid fish raised on the farm. "
The report also notes that in many cases consumers buy fish that are less sustainable than what is claimed and, in some cases, they are unwittingly acquiring types of fish that can cause gastrointestinal problems. In addition, according to a Forbes article, a report conducted between 2010 and 2012 by a marine survey agency, Oceana, identified that at least one in three US fish products in the United States was incorrectly labeled. Needless to say, a solution is needed and ready.
Enter blockchain. The new disruptive technology promises to make obsolete traditional operations based on paper accounting, replaced by digital registers, and also promises to ensure greater reliability and trust in the food supply chain. Titles abound and announce how blockchain technology will revolutionize financial services markets, which are burdened by cumbersome paperwork and expensive proprietary software applications. However, not everyone realizes that the trend towards the development of the blockchain has direct roots in the erosion of confidence that has grown while the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 has exploded all over the world.
Blockchain allows people to securely record transactions via a decentralized platform without a lot of intermediaries. Because of the benefits it can bring to the process of tracing food sources, it could also be a large part of the response in the fight against fish fraud.
According to Forbes: "Some companies are already using blockchain technology to trace the supply chain – for example, an initiative called Tuna on the Blockchain provides a source system so you know where the tuna comes from. in 2016 it was reported that a British start-up called Provenance went to Indonesia and tested the tracking tuna on the blockchain. "
Numerous legislative and corporate proposals are underway that could require detailed labeling of fish products. Legit Fish is a Boston-based company dedicated to improving traceability and verification of fish products. The company has developed a seafood traceability database that compares the confidential data of participants in the supply chain to land data collected by the government in order to provide fish merchants, processors, retailers and their customers with a solid verification of every single batch of product that has been. As this story notes, Legit Fish is collaborating with companies like BASE that are integrating solutions for traceability of fish products with blockchain.
On the occasion of a meeting held in July by The Spoon, the blockchain was very present in the minds of the fishermen present. They see the blockchain as a way to demonstrate not only the provenance, but also to help them not to blame unfairly the fraudulent acts that occur along the fish supply chain. Recently, we wrote about how blockchain technology could help quickly mitigate the crisis involving E.coli and California lettuce in California. Similarly, providing better information on supply and, above all, more information on food supply, the blockchain could make fish frauds more difficult to achieve than today.
In a 2018 Smart Kitchen Summit panel, mature.io and Walmart executives discussed the promise of blockchain in the food industry, food safety, and which groups of people need to connect to make blockchain solutions work. Watch the video to hear the whole conversation.
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