Case Study: Walmart achieves near-instant traceability and unprecedented food supply transparency with Hyperledger Fabric

How Walmart brought unprecedented transparency to the food supply chain with Hyperledger Fabric

Walmart faced slow, opaque food provenance tracing that could leave foodborne illness outbreaks taking days or weeks to pinpoint and force large, unnecessary recalls. To address this, Walmart explored blockchain and tested a traceability system built on Hyperledger — specifically Hyperledger Fabric — working with technology partner IBM to run proof-of-concept projects for mangoes in the U.S. and pork in China.

Using Hyperledger Fabric, Walmart implemented a permissioned blockchain traceability system that let suppliers upload provenance data (and certificates of authenticity for pork) through a web interface. The results were dramatic: mango tracing dropped from about 7 days to 2.2 seconds, and Walmart now traces over 25 products from five suppliers with plans to expand and require leafy-greens suppliers to join — all powered by Hyperledger Fabric.

Walmart

Frank Yiannas

Vice President of Food Safety