Leveraging blockchain technology to improve verification and traceability of halal beef

18 August 2022 — Halal food verification will be strengthened through an upcoming online platform, Intersect, designed to improve halal food product procurement, provenance and security.

Malaysia-headquartered supply chain company Fluree and supply management platform Sinisana Technologies are involved in the partnership.

The blockchain-enabled platform is designed to increase supply chain and logistics customer transparency and integrity throughout the lifecycle of halal food products from their respective origins to grocery store shelves. It involves real-time and integrated data to help companies make supply chain decisions.

“Sinisana is a well-respected leader in supply chain solutions in Southeast Asia,” said Brian Platz, co-founder and CEO of Fluree. “Sinisana’s Intersect solution will specifically monitor a supply chain for halal beef originating from Australian cattle – its first operational use case.”

“Fluree technology will help track the cattle’s first transit from a premium beef supplier in Sarawak, Malaysia, to grocery stores. Sinisana’s Halal beef traceability app is one of the first powered by blockchain technology in Southeast Asia.

Fluree’s blockchain technology connects previously siled data, enabling interoperability between different datasets and supply chain networks.Streamlined halal sourcing
Halal is a set of standards that adhere to dietary restrictions prescribed by Islamic law, including humane treatment of animals while living on a farm and not cooking with alcohol.

“We’ve seen cost savings of more than 50% since using Fluree’s blockchain technology in January,” comments Jonah Lau, Sinisana’s co-founder and chief technology officer. “The development time has also been significantly reduced. We can have a blockchain-based ledger up and running in less than an hour using Fluree.”

“Fluree’s ease of deployment and maintenance is a key factor in our decision to switch to using Fluree technologies,” he notes. “The meat supply chain and halal meat in particular is a complicated and highly regulated industry.”

“By leveraging Fluree’s graph-based blockchain technology, our solution provides a collaborative platform for multiple organizations to bring trust and transparency into the halal beef market.”

Fluree’s blockchain technology connects previously siled data, enabling interoperability between different datasets and supply chain networks. “Business customers using Intersect can effectively recall goods, prevent counterfeiting, prove ethical sourcing and predict demand,” the company says.

Which spans a myriad of sectors
The Halal use case is just one case where Intersect, powered by Fluree, can be used. Others include pesticide and herbicide tracking, ingredient tracking, third-party lab integration, kosher certification, organic certification, and multi-ingredient traceability.

Sinisana has been using Fluree technology since March for the traceability of soft shell crabs and shrimps. The company also plans to launch a new project with Fluree technology in August, which will provide transparency about the origin of ingredients and products from marginalized indigenous communities living in Malaysian rainforests.

Sinisana will store payment information of these communities in “immutable form” using Fluree technology, in an effort to preserve biodiversity by eliminating the need to destroy rainforest habitats.

The project will be carried out in collaboration with the Sarawak Biodiversity Center as part of its commitment to and compliance with the United Nations Development Programme’s Access and Benefit Sharing Programme.

“When we talk about blockchain for supply chain networks, we often overlook the value the technology can potentially bring to the consumer,” said Buck Flannigan, Fluree’s vice president of global alliances.

“Sinisana proves that these emerging technologies can not only provide trust and transparency across business-to-business partners in a network, but also ensure trust and accountability for consumers who care about purchasing and handling goods.”

Big moves in blockchain
Increasingly, food companies of all scales are betting on blockchain. Earlier this month, researchers at Aalto University in Finland developed and tested a pilot app to help consumers evaluate their shopping choices and offer new insights into the impact of certain foods.

Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium (Consorzio del Parmigiano Reggiano) recently teamed up with Dutch cheese label designer Kaasmerk Matec and digital tracking developer p-Chip Corporation to embed blockchain-enabled traceable silicon microchips—the size of a grain of salt—directly into a food-safe Parmesan casein label placed on wheels of cheese.

In other moves, PepsiCo is trialling technology from Security Matters – an invisible “marker” system that enables both physical and digital tracking to identify, track and sort packaging waste, which is logged on a blockchain system.

Edited by Benjamin Ferrer

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