Walmart uses the blockchain to fight against E outbreaks. coli

Every few days, there seems to be another reminder of contaminated food. Walmart thinks it has found a solution to respond quickly to such incidents: the blockchain.

Over the past two years, the blockchain has moved from arcane technology to a disruptive potential to a buzzword that often seems outdated. But Walmart introduces what could be a case of promising use for the blockchain. He is asking suppliers of lettuce and leafy vegetables to use the blockchain to trace their products in Walmart's supply chain.

2018 has seen a worrying increase in food recalls. Last month, Cargill recalled 25,000 pounds of beef after an outbreak of E. Coli, and this month, she recalled 132,000 additional pounds. Salmonella outbreaks have resulted in recalls of raw turkey, Kellogg Smacks, pre-cut melon and more than 200 million eggs.

In April, an epidemic of E. Coli in romaine lettuce from Yuma, Arizona, left 150 people sick, caused huge losses to producers and disrupted supply chains of restaurants and grocery stores. The crisis lasted weeks as regulators and companies struggled to find the source and extent of contaminated lettuce.

Walmart said the fear of the Roman E. coli was exactly the kind of scenario the blockchain could answer. The company has piloted a program with IBM Food Food, a blockchain initiative that creates a large digital registry that tracks farm food – where it's connected to portable devices – to processing facilities, then to distributors and food departments. grocery stores. The result is a way to track foods that can quickly trace bacterial outbreaks to the source.

"The way it works today is a paper-based exercise that sometimes goes dry," said Frank Yiannis, vice president of food safety at Walmart. "With the traceability of the blockchain, we can digitize products and accurately track them in seconds instead of days or weeks."

Walmart is asking its direct suppliers of leafy vegetables to adopt the IBM Food Trust network no later than January 31, 2019 and to join other suppliers no later than September. Depending on the success of the program, other food products can be found on the blockchain.

"In the future, a customer could scan a bag of salad and see if he is involved in a recall or not," said Yiannis.