2018 has witnessed a steady increase in the number of food manufacturers and retailers using blockchains to enhance their operations. From tracking the quality of food to facilitating international trades in grain, blockchain technology has been turning up repeatedly in recent months; and while many deployments of such tech have been conducted on a trial basis, a growing number have been implemented permanently.
However, as much as it now seems that blockchains are becoming a familiar feature of the food industry, they aren’t an infallible solution to every problem it faces. Even though many blockchains will provide an 'immutable' and 'trustless' record of the distribution of certain foods, this doesn't mean we don't have to trust the parties that first registered these foods on them. And similarly, even though such multinationals as Carrefour (PA:CARR) are using solutions offered by the IBM (NYSE:IBM) Food Trust, they don’t use blockchains in the original sense of the term.