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Walmart Is Getting Suppliers to Put Food on Blockchain to Track

Walmart Is Getting Suppliers to Put Food on Blockchain to Track

(Bloomberg) -- Walmart Inc. is getting suppliers to put food on the blockchain to help reduce waste, better manage contamination cases and improve transparency.

The retailer, which started running tests with International Business Machines Corp.’s blockchain platform in 2016, is ready to use the technology on its live food business, according to Frank Yiannas, vice president of food safety and health. Yiannas spoke Monday at the MIT Technology Review’s Business of Blockchain conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Yiannas said blockchain was able to cut the time it took to track produce to two seconds from six days.

To contact the reporter on this story: Camila Russo in New York at crusso15@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Dave Liedtka

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