Food companies Unilever and Nestlé will integrate blockchain technology into their supply chain, in collaboration with American IT company IBM. This should improve insights into said chain.
Transparency
Companies like Unilever and Nestlé want to use blockchain in order to be able to track products across the entire flow towards the customer. This technology creates a reliable database, tracking products from start to finish. “Blockchain helps companies from the same industry to create a new type of control and trust together”, IBM Blockchain director Marie Weck said.
In the fipronil crisis that is currently raging through Europe, it would have been easier and faster to find out which products were contaminated and which were not, because every egg would have been given one code from the start and every step in the chain adds additional information to that code, whether manually or automatically. Everyone can then read and check the information. It is also impossible to alter that information, excluding fraud almost entirely. Blockchain technology’s major advantage is its transparency.
Not only Unilever and Nestlé will use the technology because Dole, Walmart and Driscoll’s have also pledged their allegiance to the technology, which is also known for its connection to bitcoins.
