The World Wildlife Fund announces that it is launching a blockchain platform to help the food industry monitor its supply chain. The platform, called OpenSC, should enable companies to remove illegal, harmful and unethical products from their supply chains.
According to WWF, OpenSC will ensure transparency between customers and companies. In addition, the public can trace the entire history of a product and thus see its exact origin. This would help them keep an eye on what they are buying and could encourage companies to ensure that their products have a responsible origin.
More transparency
According to WWF Australia’s CEO Dermot OGorman, OpenSC creates a high level of transparency. It will soon be clear to people whether the food we eat contributes to the damage to habitats and animal species, as well as social inequality and human rights problems such as slavery. OpenSC will revolutionize the way we buy food and other products, helping consumers, businesses, governments and industry to make better choices.
WWF has developed OpenSC together with BCG Digital Ventures. It is a register that, among other things, looks at where a product comes from, how it has been processed, packaged and finally ended up on the shelves of a shop. To be able to see the origin of a product, a consumer only has to conjure up his or her smartphone and open the app.
Safe system
The app uses a Quick Response code that is printed on the packaging of a product. Once a product has been scanned, the consumer is shown a map showing where it came from, when it was produced and how it ended up in the store. For companies, the system offers a register that cannot be tampered with and creates greater mutual trust.
The blockchain system can also be used to automatically track the origin of raw material or a product. So every time it changes owners, it’s easy to see. The automated tracking of a product can be done by means of scannable codes on the packaging or containers of raw materials. Tags could also be attached to certain food products, for example. Each time the code or tag is scanned, information is immediately sent to the blockchain. The system can also keep track of information to see how long something can be kept. Think of the temperature, humidity and other factors that influence it.
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.
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