by F. Charles Waud, President of WaudWare:
We continue to hear a lot about blockchain in the media. Last June, we published a blog entitled Blockchain Technology Explained. In it, blockchain is defined as, “the ingeniously simple, revolutionary protocol that allows transactions to be simultaneously anonymous and secure, peer-to-peer, instant and frictionless”.
Blockchain is already being used in many applications and is being considered for many more. I’d like to talk about the possibilities of using blockchain technology in the fresh produce industry.
Produce traceability is something that consistently receives a lot of attention. Sadly, there continue to be issues where people consume “bad” produce and get sick, and tragically, some die. It’s heartbreaking to hear.
If there was a way for all the traceability details about a batch of fresh produce to be looked up very quickly, it would hopefully lead to the “bad” produce being removed from shelves faster.
Blockchain technology could be the solution. If companies who handle produce were to upload data on receiving, moving, packing, shipping and discarding activities to a blockchain ledger in the cloud, it could be used by anyone wanting to look up traceability information details. Want to know more about blockchain? Read the article published by Produce Grower, “Familiarize yourself with blockchain technology“.
At WaudWare, we are already working on the challenge of determining the best way for our Produce Inventory Control System (PICS) software to upload the data described above to a blockchain ledger. We see this as our contribution to the global goal of making food safety a major priority.
Stay tuned …