Digitising the supply chain

Blockchain has the potential to disrupt businesses that way the internet did in the 90s.

That’s according to Paul Sidhu, IBM’s blockchain practice leader, who spoke at the inaugural PMA Australia-New Zealand (A-NZ) Tech Event earlier this month.

Some 60 delegates from the fresh produce industry and leading retailers joined Sidhu and PMA-A-NZ at Melbourne Market on 5 July to hear about the latest technologies to manage production and improve food safety practices.

Sidhu opened the event discussing how blockchain can benefit the produce industry, from improving traceability throughout the supply chain to streamlining auditing and building trust among trading partners, ultimately digitising the supply chain.

The technology works by making transaction widely available and visible to everyone who has permission to view it. There’s an added immutability around record keeping, meaning even errors in transitions are recorded, and when fixed, the resolution is recorded as well.

Using the work IBM is doing with US retail giant Walmart as an example, he explained how for retailers, blockchain offers a massive opportunity to remove waste, reduce the risk of food safety and improve the speed of product recalls.

Walmart is triallingblockchain programmes with IBM to address its need for traceability in its supply chain and quick recall methods. It’s using blockchain to trace pork in China from farm to fork, and also tracing the global trade of mangoes from when and where mango tree seeds are planted to tracking the distribution of the fruit.

With blockchain, which is built on consensus-driven record taking, tracking information throughout the supply chain can be cut from six or seven days down to five seconds.

Sidhu says blockchain could also extend to tracking everything from temperatures inside refridgerated containers to GPS coordinates, with any issues able to be flagged on the blockchain for all relevant parties to see.

For disputes, Sidhu said resolution times could also be cut down as each step in the supply chain is recorded with full visibility, earning trust between business patterns. The challenge, though, is that for blockchain to work, it needs to be done by a consortium, not individual businesses.

Also speaking at the event was Chris Motton of Goulburn Valley-based Advance Computing, which works with Microsoft to develop ‘intelligent farms’. Using sensors, automonitoring and integrated software, Motton discussed ways growers could gain real time information on their produce, ultimately reducing the likelihood of waste.

Working with Australia’s largest tomato processor, Kagome, Motton said the business had seen a 500 per cent return on investment after using the software, through reduced waste, reduced losses, and a streamlining of workloads and reduction in paperwork.

Offering the growers’ perspective, Hugh Reardon of Dicky Bill Farming, told delegates of the challenges he was facing trying to managing fresh produce farms in Queensland and Victoria that lead him to developing a tailor-made app, Apunga.

The app offers traceability, even allowing consumers to access information on where, when and by who their produce was grown, just by scanning a QR code on the packaging.

To ensure all of that information was being gathered and recorded, Reardon said they implemented competitions for staff to increase data entry, with rewards for hitting targets, etc.

The event was finished up by a look at Victoria’s Schreurs & Sons’ early adoption of using electrolysed oxidising water as a sanitising technology for its fresh produce.