BRF and Carrefour join IBM to strengthen food traceability

 

The initiative aims to guarantee the quality of the products from their origin in the countryside to the supermarket shelves.

 

BRF, one of the largest food companies in the world, and the retail chain Carrefour have teamed up with IBM Brasil to develop the “Food Tracking” project to trace products through blockchain technology. The aim is to inform the consumer, in a simple and objective way, about the origin of the food, considering all stages of the business: production, commercial and logistics. The project was developed at Garagem 11.57 – a space created by IBM to accelerate innovations and applications in the cloud.

 

According to Regina Nori, leader of technical solutions at IBM Brazil, the concern with food safety and the reliability of the origin of food has been growing worldwide. “In Brazil, BRF and Carrefour are optimistic about the potential of blockchain technology to bring more visibility to compliance and process quality”, he explains.

 

The initial phase, which also seeks to identify opportunities and scale the challenges in the application of the technological solution, includes a specific batch of frozen and sliced pork loin of the Sadia brand. The project, using IBM's Blockchain platform based on the Linux Foundation's Hyperledger Fabric, lasted eight weeks and the product was marketed at the network's hypermarket in São Paulo (SP). “As production and distribution take place on a large scale, in several countries, and involve numerous business partners, we saw the opportunity to evolve the current existing traceability solutions to a more collaborative and secure platform, which allows certifying products and guaranteeing quality. from the field to the consumer. In the experiment carried out with Carrefour and IBM, blockchain emerged as a viable alternative to meet these needs”, explains Ney Santos, vice president of technology at BRF.

 

From the reading of a QR Code affixed to the packaging, the consumer will have access to detailed information on the stages of production, distribution and availability of the product on the retail shelf.

 

Carrefour already has several certification, quality, socio-environmental traceability and food safety programs in Brazil. In line with these commitments, the blockchain system extends the quality assurance of the products it sells across the country, offering one more tool to customers who are increasingly concerned about the origin of the food they consume.

 

Blockchain is a technology used to make transactions reliably and securely. In this business model, it is possible for a group of institutions or individuals to create a single record of information that will be shared in this chain, in blocks, with application in all business areas where there is any type of asset transfer, tangible or intangible. All of this is supported by a computing cloud. 

 

In the context of the consumer products industry, Blockchain establishes a trusted environment for all transactions in which participants: producers, suppliers, processors, transporters, distributors, retailers, regulators and consumers can gain permissive access to consensual and reliable information about the origin and state of food. This allows members of this complex ecosystem to utilize this network of blockchains, for example, to track contaminated products in a short time to ensure safe removal from store shelves and reduce the risk of disease spread.

 

In early September, the Brazilian Government created a plan, “The Best of Brazilian Agro”, in which it encourages the agribusiness industry to be more transparent and guarantee the quality of its products, promoting national agriculture globally. With the adoption of technologies such as Blockchain, many action plans for the sustainability and productive guarantee of Brazilian agribusiness can be put into practice, strengthening the image of this sector across the country.