American agricultural conglomerate Cargill is testing the blockchain to track and trace the origin of turkey products produced by family farms.
Cargill’s Honeysuckle White brand is to employ the technology to enable consumers to know exactly where their turkey’s are coming from. At select markets, consumers can enter or text an on-package code at HoneysuckleWhite.com, according to Meat Poultry. Consumers can then view the farm’s location by state and county, read up on the farm’s story, see photos and read a message from the farmer.
With consumer confidence in food low, Cargill is keen to improve on this through the blockchain, giving buyers the option of seeing how their food is produced and where it comes from.
In a statement, Deborah Socha, Honeysuckle White brand manager, said:
Honeysuckle White brand is the first and only major turkey brand to pilot a blockchain-based solution for traceable turkey.
This isn’t the first time that the distributed ledger has been used to track and trace a foods origin.
Last October, Walmart partnered with IBM to put pork on the blockchain, a nation which has experienced a number of food scandals in the past. Other notable efforts to track the origin of food include an Arkansas livestock farmers cooperative that is employing the technology to trace its meat through the supply chain, a Taiwanese e-commerce platform using the Ethereum blockchain for food safety, and the Japanese government, which is utilizing a NEM-based blockchain to track wild game meat.
These are just a few instances, but highlight the growing importance of the blockchain and its use within the food industry. With more consumers keen to know where the food they are eating is coming from the distributed ledger provides the ideal answer.