Food Safety and Blockchain Technology

I work in the food safety industry and it is important to me to make sure that we are doing everything possible to ensure public health. O had read an article on how IBM was teaming up with some major players like Walmart to test out blockchain technology and its application in food traceability. Why is food traceability important you may ask? Well, if my company is made aware that one of our suppliers has produce contaminated food (foreign object, disease, etc.) and the food has been delivered to our stores, it could take weeks to identify the exact lot of food that was impacted. Now a reputable organization will recall or put a hold on all of the specific product in question, but this may have quite a financial impact on stores and the organization as a whole. Now I am not too familiar with the technical applications of blockchain technology in food safety, but what I have heard so far is that you can take something that takes weeks to identify and isolate, to merely hours. In the grand scheme of food safety, that is amazing as you would essentially limit the public impact of people getting exposed to the impacted product. While our traceability program is pretty solid and is considered one of the best in the industry, improvements can always be made. I look forward in hearing more about this technology and continue to strive for better ways to improve food safety. If anyone else has any insight into this technology, specifically within food safety, I would love to hear about it.