With the help of IBM, Norwegian company Cermaq is putting salmon on the blockchain.
Cermaq’s salmon are meant to be sold by French food company Labeyrie. Just like how Carrefour manages to put its products on a blockchain, Labeyrie consumers can scan a special QR codes on the salmon products' labels to see comprehensive details in text and photos about the salmon‘s journey “from egg to store.”
At its press release, Cermaq refers the data as “CV,” which features information about where the salmon's egg was hatched, which fresh water facility it came from, its size when transferred to seawater, the location of its farming facility.
It also includes health and welfare information such as which vaccinations it has received, what it has been fed, and when it was harvested.
According to Cermaq Norway sales director Brede Løfsgaard:
"This is a new and exciting project, which puts a larger emphasis on transparency and traceability in all parts of our value chain. This is something we as a company are very focused on, but also something we see that consumers want and expect."
Cermaq is a subsidiary of Mitsubishi that conducts businesses in the seafood and food processing industry.
The company produces Atlantic salmon, coho and trout. The company operates in offices in Canada in Campbell River and Tofino; in Norway with operations in Nordland and Finnmark; and also offices in Chile.
As for Labeyrie, the company is known for its brand of smoked salmon in France.
Both Cermaq and Labeyrie are working together with IBM Food Trust to manage this data.
Instead of using a public ledger, the two companies use IBM which has a specialized software suite for tracking food supply routes with private distributed ledgers.
IBM built the platform using open source DLT software Hyperledger Fabric, released by the Linux Foundation.
'@Cermaq cooperate with Labeyrie on blockchain https://t.co/ZUORnavBJQ
— SalmonBusiness (@Salmon_Business) November 20, 2019
People are becoming increasingly aware of the origin of the food they eat. And at the same time, there is also an increasing concern whether the food is safe to eat and if it has been produced in a sustainable way.
So here, the companies in putting salmon's information to blockchain allows consumers to receive great details about the products they're buying and consuming.
With the blockchain initiative, Labeyrie has launched its traceability system, initially for two of its Norwegian smoked salmon products.
A week earlier, the leading food brand Nestlé had joined forces with French retailer Carrefour to put baby milk formula on the blockchain, also using IBM Food Trust.