Walmart's Foray Into Blockchain, How Is the Technology Used?

Walmart is currently making use of blockchain technology to create a food traceability system based on the Linux Foundation's Hyperledger Fabric.

Now, the company claims that because of Walmart's Hyperledger Fabric-powered blockchain system, the firm has the ability to trace the origins of over 25 products from five different suppliers.

"Creating a system for the entire food supply ecosystem has been a challenge for years, and no one had figured it out. We thought that blockchain technology might be a good fit for this problem, because of its focus on trust, immutability, and transparency."

A few months back, on June 25, Walmart China - in conjunction with the CCFA, PwC, Inner Mongolia Kerchin Co. Ltd., and VeChain - created a traceability platform atop the VeChainThor blockchain.

On the aforementioned subject, researchers at Walmart believe that its new food traceability system will see traceable fresh meat account for 50% of the firm's total fresh meat sales and traceable vegetables account for 40% of Walmart's total sales of packaged vegetables.

From a purely technical standpoint, VeChain's blockchain technology will allow Walmart to seamlessly deploy its traceability strategy and allow for the large-scale use of this decentralized technology.

Around the summer of 2018, Walmart along with nine other big-name companies entered into a partnership with IBM in order to devise an brand-new blockchain ecosystem for tracking its respective food supplies across the globe via the use of a unified decentralized platform called the Food Trust Blockchain.

In the past, Walmart's ex-VP of food safety, Frank Yiannas, referred to the aforementioned Food Trust blockchain as being the food equivalent of FedEx's package tracking system.

Drug distribution: A few months back, IBM and Walmart announced their decision to partner with KPMG and Merck in order to build a drug supply chain blockchain pilot.

Blockchain-based drone communication system: In August 2018, Walmart filed a patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in relation to a new drone-based system that encrypts and stores the operational parameters of each of its aerial devices.