Carrefour is to use IBM Food Trust blockchain

Leading global retailer Carrefour announced, they will use the IBM Food Trust blockchain network to strengthen their food excellence actions. Carrefour is one of the world's leading retailers with more than 12,000 stores in 33 countries. Laurent Vallée, general secretary of Carrefour said "being a founding member of the IBM Food Trust platform is a great opportunity for Carrefour and widen the integration of blockchain technology to our products in order to provide our clients with safe and undoubted traceability". Every passing day there are new participants to this movement among retailers and suppliers. Walmart for example recently announced that it will begin requiring its leafy green suppliers to capture digital, end-to-end traceability event information using IBM Food Trust. IBM Food Trust uses a decentralized model to allow multiple participating members of the food supply chain – from growers to suppliers to retailers – to share food origin details, processing data and shipping information on a permissioned blockchain network. Each node on the blockchain is controlled by a separate entity, and all data on the blockchain is encrypted. The decentralized features of the network enable all parties to work together to ensure the data is trusted. Participants can select from three IBM Food Trust software-as-a-service modules with pricing that is scaled for small, medium and global enterprises, beginning at $100 USD per month. Suppliers can contribute data to the network at no cost. IBM Food Trust is available as a subscription service for members of the food ecosystem to join. Read more on >>

What does Deloitte Blockchain Report say?

"The adoption of blockchain is still in its early stages across EMEA, although at different speeds in different sectors and geographies. Overall, however, there is strong belief in thelong-term impact of blockchain to help transform business and government services. Government organizations are coming to the forefront in spearheading the adoption of blockchain. The European Commission has supported the signing of a 27-country pact on blockchain, the European Blockchain Partnership, that will see EU-wide collaboration on regulatory and technical matters. The EU will allocate €300 million in blockchain investment over the next three years. It has also established the European Blockchain Observatory toundertake research on how blockchain can  be applied. In the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates has developed a visionary strategy for blockchain with theintent of having 50 percent of government transactions on blockchain by 2021. Elsewhere, individual countries are working to advance their own specific initiatives, such as Sweden’s blockchain-based land registry project. At a regulatory level, many of the national and regional regulators are adopting a wait-and-see approach, preferring to explore and understand blockchain’s regulatory and policy implications before moving forward. ... Despite this significant activity, a number of factors areimpacting the pace of adoption: • Reputational issues with cyptocurrencies are contaminating blockchain investment decisions and causing board-level concerns • Slow progress on the development of the necessary regulatory frameworks, legislation, and industry standards that are required to move from pilots to production • A lack of available talent with blockchain expertise • Governance challenges around consortia While progress is being made on preparing the ground or further development in locations, such as the United Kingdom, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, Ireland, and Switzerland, it is also clear that  there is more to accomplishto accelerate blockchain adoption in this region over the next two to three years." Read more >>

CEO of Genesis Group, Chinese Leading Financial Institution Specializing in Blockchain, Speaks at DAIBC | Business Wire

CEO of Genesis Group, Chinese Leading Financial Institution Specializing in Blockchain, Speaks at DAIBC | Business Wire: The DAIBC was held in Kuala Lumpur on September 27-28, 2018. Feng Chi, CEO of Genesis Group, was invited to deliver a speech on the development of the blockchain market in China. “The blockchain is becoming the critical area for international competition,” he said. “The blockchain sets no block to any country. It is a global revolution on productive relations and the blockchain market differs in every country.” From 2013 when China Central Television reported BitCoin for the first time to 2017 when the blockchain hype emerged in China, China’s blockchain market has undergone ups and downs, creating opportunities and challenges. According to 2018 China Blockchain Industry Whitepaper published by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of March 2018, there were 456 companies specializing in blockchain businesses. Before 2013, this number was only 31, but 136 and 178 respectively in 2016 and 2017. These companies fall into several categories, with the financial services being the majority, followed by blockchain solutions, underlying platforms, and blockchain media & communities. So far, the blockchain technology has been applied in areas such as supply-chain finance, credit investigation, product tracing, copyright trading, digital identity and digital evidence...