Walmart and IBM will track pork in China with blockchain
Retail giant Walmart opened a new "food safety collaboration center" in Beijing on October 19 and is making new moves to ensure the safety of its pork supply.
In coordination with IBM and Tsinghua University, Walmart will begin tracking the Chinese pork supply chain using blockchain. Blockchain is the dectralized, open ledger technology that orginated from the digital currency bitcoin. Consumer tech giants and financial institutions have utilized blockchain, without digital currency, as an efficient method for record-keeping.
IBM's vice president of block chain solutions Ramesh Gopinath says blockchain is immutable and makes it nearly impossible for businesses to cheat the system. This is what made the technology appeal to Walmart, which has placed food safety in China as a high priority.
China currently claims the largest pork market in the world and the
Chinese imports of pork were up 76% in February of this year.
The project is set to begin immediately. To learn more,
go here.