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SMART PRODUCTION

reassurance to well-informed shoppers, and help separate their
products from competitors. I believe that some form of this marketing
will start very soon.

Organic, Non-GMO and Fair Trade
Have you noticed that more and more food products have “USDA
organic” or “Non-GMO Verified” labels? While some of your favorite
Blockchain is perceived as an algorithm to create brands may have truly become ultra-ethical and health-conscious,
there’s also big business in marketing products as “healthy” and
consensus and a kind of distributed ledger. It “ethical.” A recent study by the Food Marketing Institute shows 44
contains digital data that cannot be edited in a block percent of consumers want to know that their food has been produced
that chains up altogether. Blockchain has been ethically, with designations such as “fair trade” and “cage free.”
Approximately 43 percent want to know that the food was minimally
increasingly talked about in Thailand especially in processed, with designations such as “Organic,” “Non-GMO” and
financial sector, but in many countries, this ultimately “No Preservatives.”
People don’t casually want this; they demand it and they’re willing
safe data system has been applied to various to pay for it. A price comparison study found that the mean cost for
industries already, not to mention a huge industry organic items surveyed was 68 percent higher than for non-organic
like the food industry. The technology has been items. With such price differences, shopping cart totals can add up
quickly.
used to ensure consumers about the safety of their Companies are finding it financially rewarding to use packaging
food throughout the chain as well as to marketize labels that deliver on consumer demands for ethically produced and
the product. minimally processed foods. That’s why you’re seeing more certification
stamps and more explicit marketing of those certifications. However,
What is Blockchain? 75 percent of consumers don’t even trust the accuracy of these labels.
That’s where blockchain can help.
Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that allows all members
of a supply chain to record transactions in a decentralized data log
maintained on a network of computers, rather than a physical ledger เอกสารอ้างอิง/References
or a single database. Transactions must be approved through • “I’ll only eat blockchain cereal with a food safety label on the box” www.ibm.
consensus, and everything is secured through cryptography. A com/blogs/blockchain/2017/09/ill-only-eat-blockchain-cereal-with-a-food-safety-
transaction is immutable once added to the blockchain, which label-on-the-box
prevents participants from manipulating or altering the records. • รายงานวิเคราะห์อุตสาหกรรมการใช้งาน Blockchain ในอุตสาหกรรมการเงิน
Participants also all gain access to data across the supply chain. การธนาคารในกลุ่มประเทศอาเซียน. สำานักงานส่งเสริมเศรษฐกิจดิจิทัล. www.depa.or.th
For example, as soon as a wheat farmer records a transfer of wheat
— that will one day become cereal — to the mill, the grocery store
will know about it.
How is It Being Used in The Food Industry?
The number of companies adopting blockchain in their businesses
is growing rapidly. In a recently announced collaboration, big names
like Kroger, McCormick and Company, McLane Company, Driscoll’s,
Tyson Foods, Golden State Foods, Unilever, Nestlé and Dole, among
others, has teamed up with a blockchain provider to implement
distributed ledger technology.
Fortune reports that “the food giants like the idea of simplifying
their supply chains,” and “see blockchains as an opportunity to
revamp their data management processes across a complex network
that includes farmers, brokers, distributors, processors, retailers,
regulators, and consumers.”
Why Blockchain will Be Important to Consumers
Consumers have grown suspect of what goes into their food and
are demanding more transparency in its preparation. By all accounts,
they have every right to be concerned! Every year, 1 in 10 people
in the world fall ill after consuming contaminated food. There have
been highly publicized incidents where entire restaurant chains
closed to address contamination and millions of grocery products
were recalled due to a peanut based salmonella outbreak.
With blockchain, accountability, traceability and quality
assurance can be raised to such a level that companies can react
to issues with the speed necessary to prevent additional people
from getting sick. Investigations into food-borne illnesses that used
to take weeks or months could be reduced to minutes if not seconds.
This has the potential to give consumers an incredible amount of
confidence, because they can know that everything in their food,
and every place that the food products touched, are fully accountable.
Blockchain on The Box
So what does the emergence, acceptance, and implementation of
blockchain mean for brands? A new marketing opportunity! Just like
brands are capitalizing on the use of “USDA organic” and “Non-
GMO” packaging labels, I’m sure you will see the same with
blockchain. Including a blockchain logo would provide instant

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