ARMONK, N.Y. and BOISE, Idaho, April 11,
2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Albertsons Companies, one of the
largest food and drug retailers in the
United States, is joining the blockchain-based IBM Food
Trust network and will begin piloting the technology to improve how
food is traced from farm to store shelf. The addition of Albertsons
Companies to the Food Trust ecosystem of more than 80 brands brings
blockchain-based food traceability to more consumers and industry
players – from producers to suppliers to retailers – by helping
enable greater transparency and collaboration, and ultimately, a
safer food supply.
Blockchain is a system of record that establishes a shared
environment for food transactions in which all participants can
collaborate in a highly secured and transparent way to build trust.
Food Trust enables network members to share digital, distributed
and immutable data, so that stakeholders across the supply chain
can work together to trace and authenticate products or optimize
supply chain processes. The solution creates a digital record of
transactions or interactions – from a packaging date, to the
temperature at which an item was shipped, to its arrival on a
grocery shelf.
The growing number of participants using the technology helps
address a broad range of food system issues, such as supply chain
efficiency, freshness, waste reduction, sustainability and
participants' ability to verify certifications, such as fair trade
and organic. It is being used to make the end-to-end food ecosystem
more transparent and trustworthy, and has the potential to
transform broad, nationwide food recalls into efficient, precise
eliminations of recalled products. Already, more than five million
food products digitized on the solution are on retail shelves.
Albertsons Companies, which operates nearly 2,300 stores across
the U.S., will pilot Food Trust for tracing bulk romaine lettuce
from one of its distribution centers, then will explore expanding
to other food categories throughout its distribution network.
Albertsons Companies plans to pilot the solution to help overcome
the obstacles that have existed when a traceback is initiated for a
product like romaine and is evaluating ways to use the technology
to highlight the provenance of its extensive Own Brands
portfolio.
"Blockchain technology has the potential to be transformational
for us as we further build differentiation on our fresh brand,"
said Anuj Dhanda, Chief Information
Officer, Albertsons Companies. "Food safety is a very significant
step. In addition, the provenance of the products enabled by
blockchain — the ability to track every move from the farm to the
customer's basket — can be very empowering for our customers."
"Multiple high-profile consumer advisories from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration
demonstrate the need to find more efficient ways of tracing
products and identifying likely sources of contamination in a
timely manner," said Jerry Noland,
VP of Food Safety & Quality Assurance, Albertsons Companies.
"Consequently, retailers are exploring new technologies to improve
the infrastructure that underpins the global food supply
chain."
A blockchain network is strongest when it includes multiple,
diverse members that form a transacting ecosystem. That is why the
solution can enable an ecosystem of companies from across the food
industry to onboard and share data. Already, members are
recommending or mandating that their supply chain partners, such as
downstream suppliers, join the network. This is intended to bring a
more complete view of the entire lifecycle of a food product.
"Establishing IBM Food Trust and opening it to the food
ecosystem last year was a major milestone in making blockchain real
for business," said Raj Rao, General Manager, IBM Food Trust.
"Today, we are focused on ensuring that the solution scales and is
accessible to participants across the food ecosystem, such as
Albertsons Companies. By bringing more members into the network and
enabling them to share greater cross-sections of data in a secured
environment, we believe our vision of a transformed food ecosystem
using blockchain is closer than ever."
By creating a transparent, secured information-sharing platform,
the food ecosystem can benefit from greater efficiencies and lower
barriers to critical information access to help make the food
supply chain safer. Built on Hyperledger Fabric-based open source
technology, the solution uses permissioning to ensure companies can
set rules about who can see the data they upload to the solution
and for how long, and that they maintain control of their data even
after it has been uploaded to Food Trust.
Food Trust is one of the largest and most active non-crypto
blockchain networks in production today. It is available as a
subscription service for members of the food ecosystem to join. For
more information on availability, please visit here.
About Albertsons Companies
Albertsons Companies, Inc.
is one of the largest food and drug retailers in the United States, with both a strong local
presence and national scale. Albertsons Cos. operates stores across
34 states and the District of
Columbia under 20 well-known banners including Albertsons,
Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's, Acme, Tom Thumb, Randalls,
United Supermarkets, Pavilions, Star
Market, Haggen and Carrs, as well as meal kit company
Plated, based in New York City.
Albertsons Cos. is committed to helping people across the country
live better lives by making a meaningful difference, neighborhood
by neighborhood. In 2018 alone, along with the Albertsons Companies
Foundation, the Company gave nearly $262
million in food and financial support. These efforts helped
millions of people in the areas of hunger relief, education, cancer
research and treatment, programs for people with disabilities and
veterans outreach.
About IBM Blockchain
IBM (NYSE: IBM) is recognized as
the leading enterprise blockchain provider. The company's research,
technical and business experts have broken barriers in transaction
processing speeds, developed the most advanced cryptography to
secure transactions, and are contributing millions of lines of open
source code to advance blockchain for businesses. IBM is the leader
in open-source blockchain solutions built for the enterprise. Since
2016, IBM has worked with hundreds of clients across financial
services, supply chain, government, retail, digital rights
management and healthcare to implement blockchain applications, and
operates a number of networks running live and in production. The
cloud-based IBM Blockchain Platform delivers the end-to-end
capabilities that clients need to quickly activate and successfully
develop, operate, govern and secure their own business networks.
IBM is an early member of Hyperledger, an open source collaborative
effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies.
For more information about IBM Blockchain, visit
https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/ or follow us on Twitter at
@ibmblockchain.
CONTACTS
Albertsons Companies
Teena Massingill
teena.massingill@albertsons.com
925-738-1387
Holli Haswell
IBM Communications
hhaswell@us.ibm.com
720-396-5485
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SOURCE IBM