Both companies seek to provide customers with data on the origin of important food products and also check the entire supply chain of them.
Retail giants Carrefour and Nestlé are using IBM’s Food Trust blockchain platform to guarantee the quality of baby milk production. The intention is to verify the supply chain of the milk-based formula for infants.
The firm wants its customers to feel confident about the products they are buying, especially with baby milk. The process would be similar to the production of other types of food. Customers will know how, where and when these formulas are produced.
In this sense, the idea is to ensure more transparency of the entire supply chain of formulas from the beginning of the production process to the end of it, and also conduct checks of infant nutrition product’s origins.
For parents, the most important is the safety of their children so food giants in different countries are interested in using blockchain technology to offer true and unalterable information about a variety of food products.
Now, thanks to blockchain technology, the GUIGOZ Bio 2 and 3 infant milk will be traced on the blockchain platform, according to what Carrefour recently informed.
How is This Possible?
Customers would be able to scan a QR code that will be incorporated on the milk’s packaging. Doing this, they will access a range of information.
“Blockchain technology enhances transparency and advances the food transition for extremely high-quality products, which parents expect for infant nutrition. For Nestle and Laboratories Guigoz, this innovative blockchain technology creates a new benchmark for transparency and the high standards of care required to ensure the quality of their products”, the firm said.
Carrefour and Nestle are not new in using blockchain technology in their internal processes. Last April, both companies began using this platform through IBM’s blockchain technology to track the supply chain of Mousline, an instant potatoes brand.
But Carrefour rolled out a similar product to the current one. The company promoted a blockchain-powered product, known as Carrefour Quality Line micro-filtered full-fat milk.
The French supermarket chain Carrefour has had a positive experience using blockchain technology. It reported an increase in sales after implementing that technology and track the supply chain of products like meat, fruit and, of course, milk.
Companies like Cargill, Walmart, Vinamilk (in Vietnam) and an Italian subsidiary of Kraft Heinz are also using blockchain technology to guarantee the quality of the products they sell.
In this way, these companies provide customers with unalterable data (one of the characteristics of blockchain technology) about where the food comes from.
The Benefits for Health
Currently, many people are worried about and interested in what they are eating. This since China’s melamine-adulterated milk scandal and the most recently reported Polish distribution of diseased meat. The scandal of China took place in 2008. Melamine is a chemical compound used in the production of laminates and glues.
To prevent similar cases, last February, French President, Emmanuel Macron, called for increasing the use of “data technologies” such as blockchain in the European Union to verify the origin of food products.
It is expected that more countries and companies use blockchain technology to know and make public how food is being produced and avoid diseases since blockchain offers the possibility of storing information about every step in any chain and, also, that data cannot be changed once it is stored.
By María Rodríguez
