(Rejected) Singapore to Leverage Blockchain in Ensuring Food Safety in Partnership with VeriTAG

In a bid to combat the growing low standard of food in its supply chain, Singapore’s Food Agency has partnered with the cloud-based tracking platform VeriTAG and ST engineering to build a food supply tracking solution on the NULS blockchain.

Singapore’s Case for Blockchain Food Tracking Solution

Per the report, Singapore’s foodservice industry is import-dependent and has been consistently plagued with products falling below stipulated standards.

As Businesswire detailed, Singapore’s Food Agency conducted a quality test on about 3,825 units of fruit and vegetables spanning from April to December 2019 and discovered that about 500 (13%) units did not meet the standards owing to ‘exceedingly high chemicals and/or pesticide residues’. 

Similarly, the agency tested 7,010 meat products in the same time period and flagged 114 of the units for failing the quality guidelines. This data the SFA noted connotes a breakdown in the country’s supply chain and thus drafted blockchain as a solution to limit or eliminate this trend.

The blockchain solution to be developed by VeriTAG will adopt a set of globally-accepted standards and frameworks that support the sharing of electronic trade documents. For optimal deployment and operations, the blockchain solution will be integrated with VeriTAG’s platform for food exports, VeriHUB, and will also use VeriSHOP as the platform’s loyalty program. 

The partnership has been applauded as it has the potential to develop a new use case for blockchain. “This partnership showcases that blockchain technology can truly be a conduit for social good and demonstrates the wide range of enterprise use cases.” Mario Blacutt, a NULS developer said in the official statement.

Blockchain Food Tracking Solution Gaining Momentum

The use of blockchain as a tool for tracking food quality and ensuring food safety has been ongoing for a while now. The US government, through its federal agency the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) back in July earmarked blockchain as one of the technological innovations that will prompt traceability and a food safety culture.

Besides government agencies, private tech companies notably Mastercard has implemented a food traceability system made available via its Blockchain-based Provenance Solution.

With these blockchain solutions being drafted in the food industry, cases have been made to back the potential of blockchain technology to save over $30 billion in costs in the global food industry.