IBM Food Trust Expands Blockchain Network to Foster a Safer, More Transparent and Efficient Global Food System

IBM Announces General Availability of IBM Food Trust as Carrefour Joins Major Supermarkets and Consumer Goods Leaders

Momentum Grows Among Users and Third-Party Data Suppliers on the Network

ARMONK, New York and PARIS, Oct. 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced growing adoption of its food supply chain network, IBM Food Trust. The blockchain-based cloud network offers participating retailers, suppliers, growers and food industry providers with data from across the food ecosystem to enable greater traceability, transparency and efficiency.

The network is now generally available after 18 months in testing, during which millions of individual food products have been tracked by retailers and suppliers.

The ecosystem of network participants continues to grow, and today, leading global retailer Carrefour announced they will use the IBM Food Trust blockchain network to strengthen their food excellence actions. As one of the world's leading retailers with more than 12,000 stores in 33 countries, Carrefour stores will initially use the solution to highlight consumers' confidence in a number of Carrefour-branded products. As a commitment of the retailer's Act for Food program, the solution is expected to expand to all Carrefour brands worldwide by 2022.

"Being a founding member of the IBM Food Trust platform is a great opportunity for Carrefour to accelerate and widen the integration of blockchain technology to our products in order to provide our clients with safe and undoubted traceability," said Laurent Vallée, general secretary of Carrefour. "This is a decisive step in the roll-out of Act for Food, our global program of concrete initiatives in favor of the food transition."

Using blockchain for trusted transactions, food can be quickly traced back to its source in as little as a few seconds instead of days or weeks. Unlike traditional databases, the attributes of blockchain and the ability to permission data, enables network members to gain a new level of trusted information. Transactions are endorsed by multiple parties, leading to an immutable single version of the truth.

"The currency of trust today is transparency and achieving it in the area of food safety happens when responsibility is shared," Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, IBM Global Industries, Clients, Platforms and Blockchain. "That collaborative approach is how the members of IBM Food Trust have shown blockchain can strengthen transparency and drive meaningful enhancements to food traceability. Ultimately that provides business benefits for participants and a better and safer product for consumers."