Blockchain at Carrefour for Quality

Has now become a classic application of blockchain supply chain.  Worked with Carrefour in supply chain space.

Carrefour uses blockchain to offer consumers greater supply chain transparency

BLOCKCHAIN CARREFOUR SA FOOD SAFETY FRESH FOODS LOGISTICS/SUPPLY CHAIN SUPERMARKETS, Apr 18, 2022, by Tom Ryan in Retailwire    with further elicited comments.  

Carrefour has become the first retailer to use blockchain technology with its own branded organic products.

The distributed ledger technology behind bitcoin enables consumers to scan the QR code on a label to access information about the life cycle of a product, including:

Its origin and the pathway it has taken: Producer name, field location, packaging location and transport means; 

Its quality: Harvest date, analysis results, variety and seasonality; 

Its organic certification: Conversion date, official certificate and additional initiatives implemented by the producer.

“By using this technology with our organic products for the first time, we are delivering on our aim of becoming the leader in the food transition for everyone,” Benoît Soury, Carrefour organic market director, said in a statement. 

Blockchain systems store data securely and in a tamper-proof manner. Potentially replacing paper processes and disjointed data systems, the enhanced data visibility from blockchain promises to more quickly resolve food safety issues as well as overcome inaccurate supply and demand predictions, manual errors, counterfeiting and compliance violations.

Walmart began using IBM’s Food Trust blockchain technology to track lettuce and spinach in 2018, but the technology has been only slowly gaining traction despite the hype around cryptocurrencies.  Hurdles slowing mainstream adoption include a general lack of knowledge on blockchain and its applications, customization issues and challenges correlating the multiple ways data can be submitted. ... ' 

Future of Grocery is Omnichannel

 Clearly, but the how the sculpted elements of the supply chain, from supplier to store to door will require much technology and behavioral experimentation.

The Future of Grocery Is Omnichannel  in Supplychainbrain

October 6, 2020 By Michael Schedlbauer, Global Industry Manager – Grocery Industry, TGW

Which grocery shopping items are you willing to buy online or via click-and-collect? Most of us would be happy to order reliably uniform products, such as toilet paper, frozen vegetables or canned tomatoes, without choosing them off the shelf. But what about fresh fish, or potatoes? Maybe, if you trusted the retailer. Tomatoes and avocadoes, though, are probably a step too far. Most people would prefer to give them a good look-over in person, even a squeeze.

And yet, the growth in online grocery orders — whether for delivery or pick-up — is undeniable. Many consumers made it over the initial hurdle of establishing which online retailers to work with, and taking the time to set up an account, during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Now, they appreciate the gains in convenience and time-saving, and are continuing to shop that way, at least more than they did before. A recent McKinsey report predicted online grocery shopping could rise to more than 10% of the total by 2025, and commented that online grocery is supply driven. As online grocery retailers provide more online capacity and options, customers will adopt this new method of grocery shopping.

Grocery retailers are challenged with building flexibility into their supply chains to meet these new demands; thus we will see the future of grocery retail adopting omnichannel solutions. Consumer demands will continue to evolve in an environment where there is a wider choice of customer journeys, and the grocery industry must be ready to respond.  ... "

SAP Pilot Tracks the SupplyChain

Note the use of open source Hyperledger.  Probably the simplest application idea in blockchain.   Mostly food companies participating, which indicates sourcing and quality assurance driven goals.

SAP pilots blockchain-based supply chain tracker
SAP has created a consortium of business partners to help it craft applications for a cloud-based blockchain platform that can track goods from creation to shipment to manufacturer as part of an automated supply chain system. 
               
By Lucas Mearian By Lucas Mearian
Senior Reporter, ComputerWorld

SAP is working with more than two dozen produce, pharmaceutical, tech and shipping companies on an automated blockchain-based supply chain tracking system that it believes will bolster visibility and ensure the authenticity of goods such as food and drugs.

The software giant is piloting its SAP Cloud Platform Blockchain with 16 farm-to-consumer produce suppliers such as Maple Leaf Foods, Johnsonville, Naturipe Farms, Tate & Lyle and Natura. It says the service enables enterprises to build and extend business applications with SAP's MultiChain blockchain service, which was built using the open-source Hyperledger Fabric platform from the Linux Foundation.  ... " 

BlockChain for Supply Chain Transactions

In CWorld: 

" ....  massive DDOS attack and weaknesses in critical systems have put security concerns front and center in the internet of things. IBM thinks a technology best known from the world of bitcoin could lock down at least one use of IoT.

The company is using blockchain technology to ensure that everything’s in order with IoT transactions. Just as a public blockchain makes bitcoin transactions traceable and verifiable, the private, cloud-based system that IBM will operate for enterprises will verify non-monetary interactions between some devices.

The blockchain offering, part of IBM’s Watson IoT Platform, was announced earlier this year. On Tuesday, the company is announcing general availability of professional services for enterprises to get ready to use the blockchain.  ... " 

Supply Chain Metrics in Household and Beauty

Good report out of SupplyChainInsights.

Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Household Products, and Beauty Companies – 2016
" ... Report Details: This report is based on analysis of financial balance sheet and income statement data within Household Products and Beauty industries, for the period of 2006-2015. The data is collected from YCharts. ,,,, 

Objective: To use financial balance sheet and income statement data to better understand the state of Household Products, and Beauty supply chains and to determine which companies’ supply chains did the best on the delivery of a portfolio of metrics over the last decade.

Highlight: Within the Household Products, and Beauty industries companies are stuck on the critical metrics that drive value. Most regressed in delivering improvement on the Supply Chain Metrics That Matter. This analysis highlights the performance of new supply chain leaders. Clorox and L’Oréal are winners of the Supply Chains to Admire analysis for 2016, with Estée Lauder posting results as a strong finalist. .... " 

Amazon Fulfillment Networks

I am a long time supply chain designer and engineer.  So it was interesting to see how one of the biggest retailers on earth addresses the problem.  In RetailingToday. Fulfillment here, not the same thing as a manufacturer's end to end supply chain, but it turns out also to be very complex.    Mostly a surface description, but with some interesting implications for all supply networks.   And how they evolve.   Also very heavily number driven and leveraged by anaytical needs .

Resilience Power for the Enterprise

Via MIT Sloan.  Very good talk today by MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi, Director of the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, on using resilience in the supply chain, with excellent case studies.   Including P&G Katrina example.   This is being tracked in Twitter now at: https://twitter.com/hashtag/resiliencepower