Food and drinks giant Nestlé has teamed up with French supermarket chain Carrefour to track the provenance of its infant milk range using blockchain. 

The firms will use IBM Food Trust's technical solution, which runs on the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain framework, to provide increased transparency on product checks and origins for the Guigoz Bio 2 and 3 ranges across the supermarket chain’s 5600 stores in France. 

Customers will be able to access nutritional and other information about the infant products by scanning a QR code via their smartphone.

In a media announcement, Carrefour said that the use of blockchain “creates a new benchmark for transparency,” across the supply chain, building trust between consumers and the brand. The grocery giant added that the technology “highlights the expertise, know-how and care taken to ensure the quality of infant nutrition products”. 

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Carrefour has committed to “widely deploy” blockchain to its product lines as part of its Act for Food programme, noting that it “guarantees consumers complete transparency regarding the channels through which products have passed.” As part of the partnership, Carrefour will lend its expertise as a blockchain pioneer, while Nestlé will share supply and production data for Guigoz Bio 2 and 3 products. It, too, is a founding member of the IBM Food Trust consortium.

Nestlé and Carrefour have previously collaborated on a blockchain solution across the supply chain for Moussline brand purée. They’re not the only ones using blockchain to track the provenance of food and ingredients; IBM Food Trust’s solution has been used to track scallops and shrimp, while South Korean telco KT is using blockchain to ensure that food going through its system is halal, meaning that it’s compliant with Islamic law.

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