Blockchain Eyes Food Tracking Industry, to Reveal Bait to Plate Journey

From the banking industry to supply chain and from the automobile to logistics, blockchain technology is changing the business landscape like never before. Not only manufacturers are getting benefited from this open ledger technology, but customers are also deriving the benefits out of it. In one of its latest application, blockchain technology is now being utilized to help consumers track the source and origin of their fish meal. This essentially means customers can verify whether the product is ethical, legal, and sustainable in nature.

OpenSC Platform

This has been made possible by the development of a digital platform in Australia named OpenSC. The platform allows the users to track the whole journey of fish meal by scanning the QR code with the help of the smartphone. The scanning will reveal the full information about the origin and source of the product, how it was produced, was the production process environmentally sustainable, and how it traveled throughout the supply chain to finally reach the customer. The platform was funded by BCG digital ventures and launched by World Wildlife Fund (WWF). By using blockchain technology, the platform records the information related to product movement and the various details pertaining to its storage and other important supply chain aspects. This, in turn, makes the accurate information available to the customers and helps them to take an informed decision based on their personal choices, preferences, and expectations from the organizations revealed the developers of the technology.

Democratization of Information

According to the BCG’s Managing Director, Paul Hunyor, the idea behind the use of blockchain technology is to democratize the information and making it accessible to all the relevant stakeholders involved in the process of either production or consumption. He further added that with OpenSC platform, consumers can now know the journey of the food they are consuming, where the food has come from, and how it has been caught or produced. Using the databases of records that are shared across the network platform, the blockchain technology ensures continuous monitoring of the records and make sure that any changes made in the records will be visible across the platform; thereby making tempering a difficult option to execute.

The evolution of OpenSC platform has the origins in a project executed by WWF that uses the blockchain technology for tracking commercial tuna fish in the Pacific Ocean. To develop the platform, BCG digital ventures was roped in, and now the platform is successfully tracking the tuna with many other kinds of seafood lined up for the addition in the tracking list. In fact, according to the spokesperson of WWF, OpenSC is also exploring the possibility of adding commodities like timber and palm oil in its tracking portfolio.

OpenSC was launched officially on January 17 in Sydney by the famous chef Matt Moran at Aria restaurant. The guests were served Patagonian toothfish, and with the use of blockchain technology, they were able to actually know and track the whole journey of their lunch. To further promote the platform, the OpenSC plans to serve its tracked food items to the business leaders who are going to attend a meeting of World Economic Forum in Switzerland. This will not only widen the appeal of the platform but also provide a firsthand experience to the business executives of what blockchain technology is capable of bringing to the table in terms of transparency and the democratization of the information, said WWF in an official statement.

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