Today, IBM announced that Raw Seafoods and its partners along the supply chain have joined the IBM Food Trust blockchain platform. The firms aim to use the traceability solution to increase efficiency, reduce fraud, and provide customers with trustworthy provenance information.
The Food Trust blockchain already boasts partnerships with the National Fisheries Institute, of which Raw Seafoods is a member, the Sustainable Shrimp Partnership, Douwe Egberts, Nestlé, and Albertsons. Today’s announcement is another sign of IBM moving from single retailers to multi-company initiatives, particularly in seafood.
“IBM Food Trust has helped some of the world’s most respected food brands and grocers improve consumer trust, address inefficiencies, and promote supply chain integrity,” said Rajendra Rao, General Manager of IBM Food Trust.
Raw Seafoods has collaborated with its global clients, including fisheries, distributors, and wholesalers, to create a fully traceable supply chain focusing on scallops. These clients include distributor and retailer Santa Monica Seafoods, restaurant TAPS Fish House, and the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery.
Rao continued: “Traditionally, tracing the origin of a given food product could take days, if it was possible at all, especially for wild caught sea scallops. By reducing that time frame to a matter of seconds, we’re able to solve three of the core consumer concerns that deter them from enjoying seafood: safety, sustainability and authenticity.”
With blockchain, common industry issues such as mislabeling, safety concerns, and lack of trust can be addressed. IBM’s platform enables fisheries to upload their catch data via satellite before they reach the shore.
The time of arrival into port, plus when the scallops were graded, selected, packaged, and shipped are uploaded along with images to the Food Trust blockchain. This accurate tracking further allows fisheries and shippers to improve sustainable practices.
Raw Seafoods plans to develop an app for consumers to verify the origin of scallops by scanning a QR code, taking information directly from the blockchain.
Daniel McQuade, Raw Seafoods’ VP of Marketing, said: “With IBM Food Trust, we found the perfect tool for establishing a direct link between the consumer and the captain of the boat that caught their fish, empowering shoppers and diners to demand more from their food supply chain.”
While IBM is making waves for blockchain in seafood traceability, EY’s Norwegian subsidiary EY Skye built a solution for salmon earlier this year. It used the cloud platform from SAP, which worked with Bumble Bee Tuna on fish traceability.
