Walmart China plans to track food through its supply chain with VeChain’s Thor blockchain, reveals a VeChain press release published on June 25. Per the release, the Walmart China Blockchain Traceability Platform (WCBTP) will be a joint venture by Walmart China, VeChain, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), cattle company Inner Mongolia Kerchin, and the China Chain-Store & Franchise Association. WCBTP has been reportedly announced at the 2019 China Products Safety Publicity Week Traceability System Construction Seminar jointly organized by Walmart China and the CCFA in Beijing. Walmart China already revealed 23 product lines that the system will track and plans to release another …

Non-profit blockchain organization Iota Foundation has teamed up with digital food safety management firm Primority to track food allergens via blockchain, Iota tweeted on June 20. The new partnership aims to reduce risks associated with potentially fatal food allergens, targeting 220 million people with food allergy worldwide, as Iota noted in the tweet. The collaboration includes the development of a prototype of an application that would enable consumers to check food products for allergens, particularly those that go under usual radars for a number of reasons, including cases when products share production lines with allergen-containing products, according to a blog …

United States seafood trade association National Fisheries Institute (NFI) is working with IBM’s blockchain supply chain solution Food Trust to trace seafood, food-related news outlet FoodOnline reports on June 11. Per the report, this is the first effort to track multiple seafood species jointly pursued by multiple companies. Furthermore, NFI members representing harvesters, importers, processors, cold storage, foodservice restaurants and retail are all reportedly involved in the program. The project is purportedly funded by the Seafood Industry Research Fund (SIRF), whose chairman Sean O’Scannlain commented on the development: “Traceability is nothing new to the seafood community but blockchain is [...] …

Russia’s third-largest food retail firm, Dixy, has implemented blockchain technology in its corporate finance system, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on June 5. The Moscow-based retailer has deployed blockchain in cooperation between suppliers and factoring firms, which represent third parties that purchase businesses’ invoices at a discount in order to help those businesses to raise funds. Specifically, following a successful pilot test, Dixy is now moving the interactions between suppliers and factoring companies to an Ethereum (ETH) blockchain-powered open trade finance platform called Factorin. The Factorin platform provides suppliers with a factoring management tool that can be …

Big Four audit firm Ernst & Young (EY) is providing its proprietary blockchain solution for a major new platform that helps consumers across Asia determine the quality, provenance and authenticity of imported European wines. The news was revealed in an official EY press release on May 23. The e-commerce platform, dubbed Tattoo, has been developed for Blockchain Wine Pte. Ltd. using EY’s OpsChain blockchain solution, which launched in fall 2018. As reported, the solution is EY’s flagship blockchain product, enabling secure and private transactions to take place on the Ethereum (ETH) public network by using zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology. According …

20 percent of the top 10 global grocers will use blockchain by 2025, according to information released by research firm Gartner Inc on April 30. Per Gartner, the main advantage of blockchain for grocers is that it provides a high degree of transparency. For grocers, this means they can use blockchain as a way to convey reliable information to their customers and retailers. Gartner even claims that blockchain “appears as an ideal technology to foster transparency and visibility along the food supply chain.” Gartner says that grocery sales are increasing globally, and that consumers now know more about a food’s …

Switzerland-based food giant Nestlé, French supermarket chain Carrefour and IBM have partnered to use the latter’s blockchain technology to track a famous French convenience food, the companies announced in a press release on April 15. Nestlé and Carrefour, both of which are members of IBM’s Food Trust blockchain platform, will use the technology from today to track the supply chain of Mousline, a well-known brand of instant mashed potatoes. Once it rolls out, shoppers will be able to scan a QR code with their smartphones to know exactly where the potatoes in a specific packet came from, as well as …

United States food and drug chain Albertsons Companies has become the latest client retailer of IBM’s Food Trust blockchain platform, the company confirmed in a press release on April 11. Albertsons, which operates a network of 2,300 stores across the U.S., will use the platform initially to track the supply chain for romaine lettuce, but aims to branch out into other products. Since it launched in October 2018, Food Trust has grown to incorporate around 80 clients in a rapidly-expanding industry, Albertsons noting that over five million food products now use blockchain technology as part of their delivery process. “Blockchain …

Swiss food technology giant Bühler introduced two food safety products that can potentially integrate blockchain at the Microsoft booth at the Hannover Messe industrial event in Germany on April 1. The company reported the news in a press release published the same day. The so-called “blockchain-ready” products presented by the company are a tool aiming to reduce microbial contamination in dry goods, dubbed Laatu, and Tubex Pro, a scale system that self-optimizes and produces a constant flow of production data. Both solutions are connected to the Bühler Insights Internet of Things service, hosted on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The …

Premium scotch whisky brand Ailsa Bay is reportedly about to release what it believes to be the world’s first scotch whisky tracked with a blockchain-based system. Liquor-related news website The Drinks Business reported on the development on March 26. Ailsa Bay is owned by William Grant & Sons (WG&S), a liquor company founded in 1887 that, according to Crunchbase, has a yearly revenue of about $80 million. Per the report, WG&S has partnered with blockchain company arc-net to develop the new products and a system that will track the complete distilling and manufacturing process from the source to the store. …

The National Development Council (NDC) of Taiwan announced today that it will launch a blockchain alliance in three months, English-language local media Taiwan News reported on March 26. The NDC is the policy-related agency of Taiwan’s executive branch of government, known as the Executive Yuan. Per the report, Minister Chen Mei-ling told the Smart City Summit & Expo in Taipei that the NDC has already consulted other government departments, experts and academics in order to determine the purpose of the alliance. Mei-ling reportedly expressed the hope that Taiwan may become an important hub in global blockchain development and use this …

The United States National Pork Board has partnered with blockchain startup ripe.io to test out a blockchain platform for pork supply chains, according to a press release published on March 18. The collaboration will ostensibly enable the Board to use a blockchain-based ecosystem to monitor and evaluate sustainability practices, food safety standards, livestock health, and environmental protections. The platform will purportedly provide insight into the production environment of pork, making it transparent and allowing parties to ensure valid certifications. According to ripe.io, the information in the system will stay anonymous. Raja Ramachandran, co-founder of ripe.io, revealed that "through blockchain, customers …