| Abstract: |
He explained to attendees at the Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo in Washington, DC, late last month that while industry often describes the process of moving food from the farm to the table as the “food chain” it is not actually linear.“I try not to use the words food chain and instead use food system, because we know that when you do these trace-backs, they are not straight back,” he said. Rather, he explained, they are chaotic and decentralized with producers regularly switching suppliers, and intermediaries, such as processors, constantly changing – making it difficult for one central player – such as Walmart – to digitally untangle and keep track of all the relationships in real time. With this in mind, when Yiannas said he learned that blockchain, like the food system, is based on a decentralized and distributed model he realized that the technology and the modern food system “were made for each other.”He explained part of the appeal of the technology is that it not only allows each player in the network to update their data so it is current – taking the burden off a central figure – but it also stops them from entering false data or making false changes to already inputted information because everyone must agree the changes are true.“Think about how when you have a traditional ledger, most of the time only one person has access to it. And that is why in the movies you see people cheat the ledger because they are the only one to see it. |
