The security of the food supply chain is of critical importance for any population and in particular in China. Indeed, the Head of the National Food Safety Commission, Vice Premier Han Zheng recently highlighted its importance: "Food safety concerns the health of everyone, and is one of the top concerns of the people. More targeted, effective and practical measures must be taken to address issues that worry the people the most, such as pesticide residues on fruits, vegetables, and crops, adulterated food, and sanitary conditions of kitchens. Supervision must be strengthened over every phase of food production, circulation and consumption, and social forces should be encouraged to take part in the supervision."
The food production process provides many opportunities for contamination at various stages; during primary production, improper use of agrochemicals, fertilizers, and pesticides in the field, and antibiotics and anti-parasitic agents in animal agriculture, all which might lead to the presence of unsafe compounds in food products. Meanwhile, suboptimal storage and transportation might lead to contamination by harmful microorganisms and associated toxins. Use of unlawful additives in food processing can further contaminate food products.
This new food security solution will allow end-customers to use their mobile device to verify the origin of the packaged food item using QR codes, and covers all segments of the food production and distribution chain as well as all relevant stakeholders such as enterprises, supervision and management authorities, and intermediary agencies. The KSI Blockchain incorporated in the solution makes it impossible to tamper with the digital information, and allows all stakeholders to explicitly rely the data exchanged throughout the supply chain.
Food Safety Cloud is led by Guizhou Research and Testing Institute (Guizhou Food Safety Testing Application Engineering Technology Research Center Co., Ltd.), together with Guizhou Technology Information Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Institute of Nutrition Sources, Guangzhou Analytical Testing Center Keli Technology Development Co., Ltd. Founded in 2014, the company is one of the first batch of key enterprises in the national high-tech enterprise and the National Big Data Comprehensive Experimental Zone. It is also one of the “seven clouds” in the key project of the big data industry in Guizhou Province.
Jian Tan, CEO of Aletheia said:
“We are seeing exploding interest in KSI blockchain based data and process integrity assurance within China, and this food safety assignment aligns well with our recent agreements in a country for automotive supply chain, big data veracity and copyright enforcement framework. We are thrilled to be working with Food Safety Cloud to help make this a reality."