Carrefour Italia is the first big retail chain that applied the blockchain technology to food traceability. First, the company used it for the chicken supply chain. At Marca 2019 fair, the business announced the use of that system for Tarocco orange variety and Carrefour-quality Sicilian lemons too, both of which can be traced thanks to the blockchain modality.
The citrus fruits are part of the Filiera Qualità Carrefour brand. This is a product line focused on quality and sustainability by respecting the environment, the producers and produce seasonality. Specifically, the produce is collected from 25 different Western Sicily farming companies which follow a very strict regulation that prevents post-harvest processing and the use of dangerous products for bees and other important insects. Additionally, sustainable agronomic alternatives and biodiversity promotion are part of these operators’ core values.
Thanks to the blockchain technology, customers can trace the origin and the supply chain of a given product through a QR Code which is applied on the product’s labels. Blockchain technology prevents information from being changed, therefore it guarantees trusted data on a given supply chain product.
Giovanni Panzeri, MDD manager for Carrefour Italia, stated, “We are very proud of the results we achieved through the blockchain technology. This aroused much curiosity in customers who are increasingly careful about supply chain products’ transparency. Further, it represented a very important involvement of our producers who happily joined our mission. The blockchain is indeed an agreement between Carrefour Italia, the end-customer and the producing companies, which completely agree with our data transparency and produce quality values”.
The application of the blockchain technology is part of the Act for Food program of the Carrefour 2022 strategic plan. With this project, Carrefour Italia aims at becoming the leading company in the Food Transition. This is a global and necessary change towards more responsible and sustainable nutrition, based on the values of quality, offer reliability, sustainability, prices and accessible information.
