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I've been watching some videos from IBM, Walmart and Ripe.io about the use of blockchain technology in food traceability and safety. It seems to me that there are a lot of buzzwords and vague claims in every single video on the topic of blockchain, and the topic of food traceability is no exception ("Your lettuce is safe because it is on the blockchain!).

I still don't see exactly why blockchain is more suited to provide traceability in the food industry than just using any plain old database with an API to enable each party to report that they've handled a specific tomato (or batch of tomatoes, rather)? I'm guessing that's pretty much what the industry has been doing for years?

Is the key difference in the fact that a database could be manipulated by a malicious actor to alter information that's already stored in it, while a blockchain is "immutable"? Or are there other reasons why blockchain technology is supposedly revolutionary for food traceability and safety?

Magnus
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1 Answers1

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Blockchain helps to create secure,transparent and cheaper transactions. It helps to establish trust between people in an adversarial environment and ensures proof of ownership for each transaction. It is decentralized, eliminates hegemony by power institutions and transparency with full access to data and functions for everyone. Transactions are tamper proof and data is secured using Cryptography. Earlier the Industry has been doing this with databases and API's (as you mention), but these are not tamper proof and the accuracy of data cannot be vouched for. In its interest a Company can manipulate and misreport the data figures or may not share its data at all with all.

For the food industry (or any other), the use of Blockchain can help the end user (Customer) by providing in-depth information beyond the label on the product. For example it can help to trace from where the ingredients for a product been sourced from, ensure the quality of the product through different stages to the end product. Data immutability, traceability and proof of ownership ensures that the Consumers get a quality product, Manufacturers a real time view of the operations, and manage and optimize their processes well.

So the key advantages would be:

  1. Establishment of Trust
  2. Proof of Ownership
  3. Data cannot be altered
  4. Accuracy of data
  5. Traceability
  6. Distributed Transactions
  7. Transparency
stamhaney
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