Blockchain Shows Up In China’s Food Safety Industry

Blockchain technology has been finding its way into new industries. Thanks to this new technology, paper ledgers and trails could soon be a thing of the past in the food safety industry.

Now, all in the name of improving food safety, Beijing’s Tsinghua University, IBM and Walmart have teamed up to track food products in China using blockchain technology.

Meat, vegetables and other products, according to Reuters, will be tracked and monitored using blockchain technology, which will enable data sharing across a network of computers. Thanks to its innate usefulness for permanently recording assets, blockchain is now showing value in the international food safety industry.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, has raised concerns about food contamination internally but also for the country’s exported products. The Chinese government is on board with the initiative by identifying this as a critical step against food contamination issues.

The technology will digitally track suppliers, like farms and stores, and how items make their way to consumers. Details may include farm origin, batch numbers, expiration dates, storage times, temperatures and shipping notes.

Ultimately, this could help food-related businesses — large and small — manage the incoming products on a broader level and also on an individual store basis.