Food borne disease outbreaks have devastating health and economic impacts across the world. For this reason, food safety has become a thing of global concern.
With the increasing consumption of packaged food, people are more concerned about what they are eating. Questions like – whether the meat product is contaminated with E.coli; the vegan food is actually vegan; the “GMO-free” sticker is actually accurate – impact retailers and consumers.
If consumers sense anything fishy in a food product or experience health damage after consuming a food product, they completely abandon the food brand. Thus, food borne illnesses can cause a lingering damage to a brand’s image.
Combining technologies like DNA extraction and computer applications, it becomes easier to pinpoint safety issues. DNA sequencing helps the food industry to examine what is or isn’t in the food sample, when tracing a foodborne illness. For instance, if a person has been diagnosed with a particular strain of salmonella, testing the genome of the bacteria can allow to establish its source. Scientists can sequence everything and see potential threats.
In the past decade, the cost of sequencing a human genome has fell drastically from around $10 million to about $1,000. Food industry participants can make advantage of this fast progression of sequencing technology. In fact, scientific labs are being funded by prominent food brands, including food manufacturers and retailers.
These scientific labs have created a huge molecular food database containing millions of genomic markers. This database would cut short the complexities involved with food safety measures. Thus, reducing losses – for both retailers and consumers.
Blockchain, a distributed ledger technology, is the next big thing that would happen to the food and beverage industry. The distributed ledger is shared among computers, so whenever a food product crosses the supply chain, it is digitally recorded. This prepares an immutable digital record of the path followed by the food.
As technologies like DNA sequencing and Blockchain are advancing, the time taken from observing a food borne disease to determining its source will reduce drastically. As per an accouchement in October, Walmart and IBM collaborated over the Blockchain technology to track sliced mango in the US and pork in China.
In June this year, one of the largest live pig suppliers to Singapore, KMP Private Ltd has collaboarated with DISA Digital Safety Pte Ltd (DiSa) to leverage on Blockchain technology. The system would be used to digitally track and trace the pork from its Indonesian piggery to the Singaporean consumer. (Read full article)
The electronic information stored and shared through Blockchain technology applications will surely transform the food industry. However, the concerning fact is that Blockchain will require a global chain supply to digitize.
Also Read: Verify your wine quality using Blockchain Technology
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