Walmart is using distributed ledger technology blockchain to take bacteria-laden food off shelves. This innovation was initially applied to secure money transactions in Bitcoin. Without going into too much detail, it’s essentially a ledger of data blocks that link together using validation codes, each of which references that of the one before. The result is an unbroken, sequential chain that’s locked from tampering. Now more industries are starting to use it, including food logistics. At every step of the way, products’ statistics can be recorded in a blockchain ledger, through tags and sensors. If anything goes wrong, affected batches can be identified, tracked and recalled almost immediately.
At the moment, Walmart is trying blockchains on Chinese pork and US packaged produce, with plans to expand the system to various foods in the US and China.
