Note from the Publisher: We thought the story we ran last week about WalMart's trial utilizing blockchain to track pork was probably just the beginning and now that has been confirmed to be the case. The initial trial for WalMart, in conjunction with IBM and a local university, will focus on tracking China's most popular meat product- pork - but if/when that proves successful, the retail behemoth fully intends to utilize blockchain technology to track other types of food products in China and internationally as well. This is a very exciting application for the technology and if WalMart is using it, then the rest of the retailing world will have to follow.
"Trying to make pork products in China safer was just the first step of Walmart’s global plans for blockchain.
The pilot unveiled last week uses technology from the Hyperledger project to track pork shipping information, including farm origination details, batch numbers and storage temperatures on a secure blockchain.
Over the months ahead, the retail giant wants to expand on that work. Walmart vice president of global food safety Frank Yiannas told CoinDesk that, in anticipation of a successful pilot launch, the company is already looking to the future for other applications.......
But it’s not just healthier food that Yiannas believes will be among the final results of building blockchain into a number of industries in China and around the world.
Yiannas says the safer conditions resulting from a more transparent, accurate record of supply chain transactions on a blockchain could have an overall impact on the Walmart brand."
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