Today on World Oceans Day, IBM announced it has partnered with the Spanish seafood firm Nueva Pescanova to trace its seafood products on the IBM Food Trust platform, a blockchain-based platform designed for supply chain traceability. A key goal is to demonstrate sustainability.
The IBM Food Trust traceability platform records supply chain data from products in near real-time, including details such as the catch location and time, shipping updates and fish feed details.
By creating a network between fisheries, producers and distributors, the platform will increase efficiency and accessibility of product data, reduce fraud and provide consumers with verified provenance information. It is hoped that increased product traceability will instill confidence amongst consumers in the sustainability of their seafood sources.
This is a topic frequently raised by shoppers, including in recent research by IBM and others. A survey by Globescan conducted last year found that 58% of shoppers will switch brands to protect the oceans.
“We fish, grow, process and market in a sustainable manner. Through this ambitious project we want to offer our consumers all over the world rigorous and detailed information on the traceability of our seafood products, from their origin until they reach their tables”, said Ignacio González, CEO of the Nueva Pescanova Group.
Nueva Pescanova is currently using the IBM Food Trust platform in two of its key operations: shrimp fishing in Argentina and prawn cultivation in Ecuador. IBM’s technology enables fisheries to upload their catch data via satellite prior to reaching the shore. In terms of blockchain technology, IBM Food Trust uses the enterprise blockchain Hyperledger Fabric.
Meanwhile, the seafood company is using Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability’s (GDST) 1.0 standards to help towards a healthy ocean by 2030 as set out by the United Nations Global Compact.
The Nueva Pescanova Group is one of Spain’s largest seafood companies, specializing in the fishing and processing of fresh, refrigerated and frozen seafood products. The company is one of the world’s largest producers of Vannamei shrimp and sells its products in more than 80 countries on five continents.
Today’s announcement consolidates the growing list of food and agricultural firms that have partnered with the IBM Food Trust for blockchain-based supply chain solutions. These are not limited to the seafood industry. It boasts partners such as retail giant Carrefour, which uses IBM Food Trust for a variety of products such as infant formula, mash potato, milk and even textiles. Nestle and Walmart were amongst the founding platform users.
Founded in 2017, the IBM Food Trust has several seafood firms using the platform for blockchain food traceability. Numerous global companies, including Raw Seafoods, National Fisheries Institute, and Sustainable Shrimp Partnership, use the Food Trust blockchain to track and trace seafood.
