Swiss food and drink multinational Nestlé and French hypermarket
chain Carrefour are trialing blockchain to provide consumers with greater transparency
in the food sector.
From
April 15, 2019, the technology will be applied to the famous Mousline
instant mashed potato brand, available on shelves in Carrefour stores around
France, to enable consumers to access reliable and unfalsifiable information on
the supply chain and production of the products.
Nestlé and Carrefour will test the blockchain platform with
Mousline purée over the next few months. The pilot will help the firms understand
the impact and scalability of the technology, and inform decisions on further
developments, Nestlé said on Monday.
“This Mousline pilot is the result of a successful partnership with Carrefour and a great step forward on our blockchain journey,” said Vineet Khanna, senior vice president, global head supply chain at Nestlé.
“We are using this technology to bring more transparency to our products by providing accurate, trusted and impartial information. That will benefit the whole value chain, including retailers and consumers.”
Using the QR code on the product’s packaging, each consumer
will be able to access a secure platform on their smartphone to gain
information on the production supply chain, including the varieties of potato
used, the dates and places of manufacture, information on quality control, and
places and dates of storage before the product reaches the shelves.
The two firms are working with IBM on the project. They joined
the IBM Food Trust platform in 2017, as a founding member for Nestlé and in
October 2018 for Carrefour.
IBM Food Trust uses blockchain technology to allow food to
be traced back to its source by connecting growers, processors, distributors,
and retailers. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution provides authorized
users with the complete history and current location of any individual food
item, as well as accompanying information such as certifications, test data and
temperature data, are readily available in seconds once uploaded onto the
blockchain.
The IBM Food Trust network currently counts more than 80
brands worldwide including Walmart, Tyson Foods, Dole, Kroger and Unilever.
The Mousline pilot is part of Nestlé’s wide range of blockchain
test projects, which range from logistics to sustainability, designed to help
reinforce trust in food.
In 2017 and 2018, the firm carried
out the first tests with simple products including baby food. This year, plans
are to extend the project to other products, Benjamin Dubois, who heads
Nestlé’s blockchain projects, said in an interview with AWP news agency in
January.