Carrefour To Use IBM’s Food Trust Blockchain Network

IBM announced on Monday (Oct. 8) that there is growing adoption of its food supply chain network, IBM Food Trust. The blockchain-based cloud network provides participating retailers, suppliers, growers and food industry providers with data from across the food ecosystem to enable greater traceability, transparency and efficiency.

In a press release, IBM said that global retailer Carrefour announced it will use the IBM Food Trust blockchain network to strengthen its food excellence steps. Carrefour will initially use the platform to highlight consumers’ confidence in a number of Carrefour-branded products. The solution is expected to expand to all Carrefour brands worldwide by 2022, IBM said in the press release.

“Being a founding member of the IBM Food Trust platform is a great opportunity for Carrefour to accelerate and widen the integration of blockchain technology to our products in order to provide our clients with safe and undoubted traceability,” said Laurent Vallée, general secretary of Carrefour. “This is a decisive step in the rollout of Act for Food, our global program of concrete initiatives in favor of the food transition.”

IBM said that by using blockchain for trusted transactions, food can easily be traced back to its source in a few seconds, when the process used to take days or weeks. Because it is based on blockchain technology, network members are able to gain a new level of trusted information. The transactions, noted IBM, are endorsed by multiple parties.

“The currency of trust today is transparency, and achieving it in the area of food safety happens when responsibility is shared,” Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, IBM Global Industries, Clients, Platforms and Blockchain in the same press release. “That collaborative approach is how the members of IBM Food Trust have shown blockchain can strengthen transparency and drive meaningful enhancements to food traceability. Ultimately, that provides business benefits for participants and a better and safer product for consumers.”

IBM noted that other members of the IBM Food Trust include the retail cooperative Topco, the retail-owned cooperative Wakefern and the suppliers BeefChain, Dennick FruitSource, Scoular and Smithfield.