Blockchain was initially coined as
part of Bitcoin-the cryptocurrency. However, today the technology behind
cryptocurrency is widely used for various industry spaces to execute their
operations. Be it document verification, music, and entertainment, automobiles,
telecommunications or any other. Hardly there exists an industrial space, that
haven’t heard about or tasted the essence of blockchain technology.
Blockchain continues to push its wide
adoption among business circles and industries like food and beverage
dauntlessly apply it. Benefits like enhanced transparency, improved
efficiency, and greater collaboration, have attracted many big players like
Nestle, Starbucks to keenly focus of blockchain undertakings. Today,
juggernauts are continuously pouring in blockchain-powered initiatives in their
operational circuit.
Indeed, in 2019, blockchain has been
penetrating deeply into food industry at a quickened pace. And it is expected
that by 2025, about 20% of the top 10 global merchants will deploy blockchain in
their food business.
So what makes blockchain technology so
popular among the industry giants?
It is none other than the distributed
ledger technology of blockchain. The shared, distributed ledger of transactions
over decentralized peer-to-peer network, makes blockchain technology highly
appealing to the mass. Blockchain is certified to be an ingenious invention that
can bring transformative changes in the food industry space.
With deployment of blockchain in the
operational circle, there instantly establishes a framework of trust and
transparency and food industry is no exception to greatly benefit from it. For
instance, the consumer can easily trace the source of their product, grocery stores
could identify the immediate replenishes, shippers can easily identify if the
truck is sufficiently filled with stocks and many more. If one sits to count
the blockchain benefits in food industry, it is nowhere to reach the finish
line. Because there are boundless advantages the distributed ledger technology
can offer towards the food industry.
Let’s see in brief how the blockchain
technology can actually work in food industry framework.
As discussed above, the backdrop for
the effective management comes from the shared, distributed ledger of
transaction. It makes it possible for the food industry participants to trace
the source of their food, beginning from the farm and ending at general store
racks.
Traceability is yet an essential
segment for the business everywhere, in which examinations concerning foodborne
diseases require extra swiftness to counteract human misfortunes.
Therefore, on account of a speculated food
contamination or foodborne diseases, finding the spoiled batch of products is
made easier and simpler with blockchain technology.
Broadly viewing, blockchain is
presumed to solve two fundamental issues in food industry. Firstly,
establishing transparency in the industry and secondly tracing the
transactions within.
According to a recent report issued by
the United States-based Food Marketing Institute (FMI), the outcry for better
transparency in the food industry is growing. The public demand to clearly list
out the product ingredients and source of food is rising day by day. Consumers
are getting health conscious and are into collecting the product information as
much as they could get.
According to the report, recently
about 75% of Americans shifted their brands to new that gives more in-depth
product information. They have started opting those products and companies,
that gives them information beyond the label written. A few years back, this
wasn’t the case. People were comparatively less conscious on the product info and
hardly 39% proclaimed they would switch the brands if the brand fails to
produce sufficient information in public. However, today the case is different,
with rising consciousness in individual health and well-being, people have
urged the necessity of getting adequate information in public.
Blockchain, being an effectively open,
immutable distributed ledger by configuration seems a viable option and an
effective solution to distribute the customers a concrete, immutable
information on food. Blockchain's immutability nature helps the food industry
to establish a label of trust via proving the data provided by the food companies
are uncorrupted.
Coming to the traceability factor,
food industry considers blockchain innovation nothing less than a boom to gather
information from different sources and make a single view of transactions
happening inside.
For example, in 2017, the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) examined a deadly Salmonella flare-up connected
to papayas imported from a farm of Mexica. In order to find the source of the
outbreak, organizations then had to draw in several meetings and tests in lab
conditions.
However, with blockchain technology,
the investment on investigations can be reduced. Blockchain keeps the potential
to rightly identify the responsible without any moments delay. By utilizing the
technology of distributed ledger-blockchain, the partners can easily trace the
degenerate harvest from a specific farm and after that precisely expel it from
the supply chain.