Farm to Table: and Everything In-between

Author: Kate Cook

Farm to Table: and Everything In-between

Will blockchain tracking be the next big thing for produce? With advances in technology and increased public interest in where food has come from, this kind of end-to-end transparency may be in the horticultural industry’s future.

If you stop to think over the journey that your food goes on to get from the farm to your dinner plate, you’re likely to realise that there is a lot more that goes into this trip than we tend to think about. Unfortunately, this means that there are many opportunities for food contamination before your food gets to you, a concern which has been exacerbated in recent years with increased instances of food-borne illnessoutbreaks and intentional contamination of produce. In order to combat this, companies have been thinking outside the box to create a more transparent and trackable system, and one of the potential solutions ideas is the use of blockchain technology to track the life and journey of fresh food.

Now, if you see the word “blockchain” and your mind fills with a haze then don’t despair, here’s the basic rundown for those of us who didn’t make our fortunes in bitcoin. Blockchain is record tracking system that is linked through cryptography, and each of these records is time-stamped and managed by multiple computers so that it is not owned by one entity. This way of storing information means that records are less likely to be corrupted because they are independently controlled and are also bound to the other records within the “chain” of information. This still may seem complicated, but if it was applied to the horticultural industry it would basically mean that where ever produce stops or changes hands on its way to the customer, there would be a detailed record of this. Information such as where the produce was, when it got there and when it left, what company was handling it at the time, and so on, would all be recorded and would be publicly accessible.

For the consumer, this means that they will be able to reliably view these records and find out where their food has comefrom. This would also have ramifications for food safety, as recalled products would be more easily identifiable with a simple scan by the customers themselves. In light of the 2018 incidents of strawberries tampering, it seems essential that some kind of detailed tracking system is put in place; it took 2 months for the main suspect of the strawberry contamination to be arrested by the police, and within this time the reputation of Australia’s horticulture and export industry was severely damaged. Although we wouldn’t wish for it, if an incident like this were to occur again a system of recordkeeping like blockchain would prevent the extent of the losses for growers and retailers by clearly identifying what stock is at risk and where the contamination may have entered the produce. After all, customers just want to be able to trust the condition of the produce they are purchasing. All up, perhaps blockchain and the produce industry are the perfect pairing after all.