How Blockchain Truly Revolutionizes Farm-To-Fork Traceability

The food supply chain is long. Really long. Before the food finds its way to the consumer’s plate, it changes numerous hands, going from the farmer to the wholesaler to the packager to the retailer – with many more industries in the middle facilitating the processing and movement of food.

One mistake at any point could lead to the food affecting human lives. The perishable nature of most foods doesn’t help either. Food supply chains now cross multiple national borders, making the entire industry even more vulnerable to mistakes. As per a WHO report, an estimated 600 million – almost 1 in 10 people in the world – fall ill after eating contaminated food and 420,000 die every year.

The Elephant in the Room

If today the consumer of a certain packaged food were to fall sick, he/she may not have a way to find out where exactly the quality breach occurred and would have no single entity which could be held accountable for the problem. Not knowing the root cause not only causes an accountability issue but also doesn’t provide a solution to ensure that the breach does not recur in future. Moreover, today’s consumers are ethically conscious. They prefer brands which source material sustainably and can transparently highlight food provenance.

Could food traceability be the answer to one of the most disturbing problems costing thousands of lives every year globally?

Understanding Food Supply Blockchain

To address the rising food safety concerns, it is important to have transparent communication and electronic collaboration across channels spread across the supply chain. With the current communication framework within the food ecosystem, tracing the root cause of an identified problem becomes difficult as well as time-consuming. A lot of parties involved in the process are tracking data independently, some not tracking them at all and many tracking them incompletely or improperly.

Introducing blockchain in food supply allows the ability to work with multiple diverse systems, tamper-proofing data storage and access across the entire value chain. This allows verified transactions to be securely shared with every participant in the food supply chain. The datapoints which can be shared include key details such as food origin, logistical conditions and even market pricing. The result is food provenance with accountability and transparency across the value chain.

The best part – a robust blockchain will let stakeholders quickly pinpoint potential sources of fault or contamination which could help prevent, contain or rectify any abnormalities. Food companiescan ensure high-quality food reaches their consumer while ensuring that comprehensive information on supplier can be communicated quickly to the shopper as and when needed.