Chinese Giant Announces Tracking Meat Using Blockchain

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has announced they would be developing their own blockchain platform, to be used to track the supply chain of its beef imports from overseas.

The e-commerce platform said in the announcement it has partnered with Australia’s InterAgri to import the firm’s Angus beef products to Chinese consumers, making the production process traceable on a blockchain. When the system becomes operational later this spring, 266 million customers will be able to check how the meat was raised, butchered, and transported.

Chen Zhang, JD.com’s CTO, said, “We’re increasingly implementing blockchain-enabled traceability solutions to give consumers confidence that they are buying safe, reliable products for their families. Consumers in China don’t just want quality imported products, they want to know that they can trust how and where their food is sourced, and blockchain helps us deliver this peace of mind.”

According to the announcement, this is not their first rodeo either. The post states that, “As part of its smart supply chain initiative, which leverages technology to bring efficiency and transparency to the supply chain, JD is already implementing blockchain tracing technology in several areas of its business.”

JD.com helped form the Blockchain Food Safety Alliance together with retail giant Walmart, IBM and Tsinghua University as well, seeking to use blockchain technologies in bringing greater levels of transparency to the country’s food supply chain, identifying and removing recalled foods from their products list.

A member of the alliance Walmart, an American retail giant, has filed for a patent for shipping using blockchain technology, as reported.