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Retail verified Verified Outcome TRL 9

Blockchain-Enabled Food Traceability

domain Client: The world's largest brick-and-mortar retailer handshake Provider: IBM (Hyperledger Fabric) schedule Deploy: Q4 2019 (Full Rollout)
94 Impact
Enterprise Ready
Evidence Score: 5/10
Strength: Very High

Executive Summary

ANALYST: COI RESEARCH

Following fatal outbreaks of E. coli and Salmonella, the retailer mandated a blockchain-based traceability system for its leafy green suppliers. By creating an immutable shared ledger, the system traces the journey of produce from farm to store, replacing paper records and disparate digital silos with a unified source of truth.

rate_review Analyst Verdict

"The definitive enterprise blockchain use case. It moved distributed ledger technology (DLT) from 'hype' to a critical safety compliance tool. The reduction in trace time from days to seconds fundamentally alters risk management in the perishables supply chain."

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Full Audit Report Available Includes Risk Register, Technical Specs & Compliance Data.

warning The Challenge

Tracing the source of food-borne illness outbreaks traditionally took up to 7 days. This latency forced broad, precautionary recalls (e.g., pulling all Romaine lettuce off shelves nationwide), resulting in millions of dollars in waste and eroded consumer trust.

psychology The Solution

The retailer implemented the 'Food Trust' network on IBM Blockchain. Suppliers upload data (harvest certificates, shipping notices) to the ledger. Each crate is tagged. Scanning a package reveals its entire history instantly, allowing for surgical recalls of only the affected batches.

settings_suggest Technical & Deployment Specs

Integrations
Supplier ERPs, IBM Food Trust
Deployment Model
Private Permissioned Blockchain
Data Classification
Supply Chain Data
Estimated TCO / ROI
High (Network effect)
POC Summary (2016-10-01 to 2017-05-01)

"Initial pilot tracked mangoes in US and pork in China."

shield Risk Register & Mitigation

Risk Factor Severity Mitigation Strategy
Supplier Adoption Friction High Mandate for leafy green suppliers; provided simplified upload tools.
Garbage-In/Garbage-Out Medium Audits required to verify physical data matches digital entry.

trending_up Impact Trajectory

Audited value realization curve

Trace time reduced from 7 days to 2.2 seconds Verified Outcome
Primary KPIOnboarding of >100 diverse suppliers
Audit CycleSignificant reduction in food waste during recalls

policy Compliance & Gov

  • Standards: FDA FSMA 204
  • Maturity (TRL): 9
  • Evidence Score: 5/10
  • Data Class: Supply Chain Data

folder_shared Verified Assets

description
Verified Case Study
PDF • Version 1
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Technical Audit
PDF • Audited
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Security Architecture

The "Blind Verification" Protocol

How we verified these outcomes for The world's largest brick-and-mortar retailer without exposing sensitive IP or identities.

Private
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1. Raw Evidence

Audit ID: #PRIV-812
Evidence: Direct SQL Logs
Public
public

2. Verified Asset

Outcome: Verified
Ref ID: #COI-812

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