The J.M. Smucker Company, also known as Smucker’s, has announced that it will use blockchain technology to trace Colombian coffee beans directly back to their source while allowing consumers the opportunity to support coffee farmers. The American food manufacturer has formed a partnership with Farmer Connect — an organization committed to increasing transparency and sustainability in agriculture supply chains — to leverage IBM’s blockchain technology to trace the coffee beans of Smucker’s popular 1850 Coffee brand. Tina Meyer-Hawkes, the vice president of marketing for coffee at J.M. Smucker’s, told Cointelegraph that the move is all about providing transparency: “By providing …

A report published by the World Economic Forum, or WEF, highlighted the critical role of fourth industrial revolution technologies. New technologies like blockchain could help stimulate growth by implementing “nature-positive” solutions following the COVID-19 outbreak. According to the “Future of Nature and Business” study shared with Cointelegraph, nature-friendly solutions could have the capacity to create 395 million jobs and generate $10.1 trillion in business opportunities by 2030. Inger Andersen, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Program, commented on the matter: “As we enter into a historic decade of action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by …

Recently, the venture arms of corporate giants Volvo and Total invested in blockchain traceability startup Circulor that helps reduce child labor in Africa and aspires to work with Tesla, GM and Ford. Prior to an investment by its venture arm, Volvo was testing Circulor’s platform for over a year. The startup was helping the carmaker to verify the origins of cobalt used in its batteries. Cobalt, as is with many other raw materials, is not always ethically sourced. Circulor is also tracking the origins of another important raw material for car manufacturing, mica, which is used for insulation. Buy mica …

The Australian National Blockchain Roadmap Steering Committee has reached out to the wider blockchain community in order to create working groups to explore specific applications of the technology within the supply chain, agricultural and educational sectors. The invitation on the Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources’ website asks interested parties to submit their expressions of interest before the 22nd of July. The working groups will explore and identify use cases and economic opportunities as well as barriers that may prevent adoption across Australia, presenting their findings to the committee by early 2021. Who’s steering this committee? Established …

Kraken Security Labs, the cybersecurity division of US-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, has identified new potential attacks against popular hardware wallet Ledger. These attacks can affect Ledger Nano X wallets if they execute prior to the user receiving the wallet, if a wallet was intercepted during shipment or obtained from a malicious reseller, Kraken noted. This leaves the attackers theoretically capable of controlling computers connected to Ledger wallets and running malware on them. Thankfully it stayed theoretical — the issue was repaired. Had the matter gone unaddressed, then we’d start hearing about “Bad Ledger attacks” and “Blind Ledger attacks.” The first …

Blockchain firm QuarkChain has announced a partnership with the ecological department of Northeastern Chinese province Shanxi. QuarkChain and the Shanxi province will jointly develop an environmental governance platform on blockchain (EGPB). This platform will be used by the local administration for construction resource management and trading. QuarkChain stated that, while limited construction materials are mostly located in a specific area, they are widely distributed to many places, creating the need for a management system that can better supervise the development and use of those resources. EGPB will be used for tracking resources along their supply chain. The network’s node operators …

Afghanistan’s healthcare ministry and several local pharmaceutical companies will use Fantom’s blockchain to combat counterfeit drugs. According to Fantom on July 6, its Opera blockchain will be used to track 80,000 units of four different pharmaceutical products in Afghanistan. After this initial pilot, the system will be scaled up to cover more products later this year. 50,000 units of hand sanitizer, 10,000 joint creams, 10,000 Kofol tablets and 10,000 Dioacare foot creams will be tracked during the pilot. The system is meant to address Afghanistan’s problem with counterfeit pharmaceuticals. Fantom stated that local law enforcement seized 100 tons of counterfeit, …

Blockchain technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) can solve some of the food industry’s most pressing challenges and save it $100 billion a year, according to a recent report by Cointelegraph Consulting and VeChain. The report forecasts that $300 billion worth of food items will be traced along the supply chain annually within seven years. The lack of transparency and accountability in the global food industry’s supply chain costs billions of dollars annually. To take one example, it’s believed that as much as 20% of global wine sales are counterfeit, worth $6 billion. And things get even fishier when …

Binance’s new blockchain research institute in China has forged a strategic partnership with a state-level supply chain innovator to jointly develop digital infrastructure for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country. Announced today, July 3, the institute’s new partner is Zhongshang Beidon; a state-level enterprise for supply chain innovation that ultimately falls under the oversight of a ministerial-level organization known as the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council” — or SASAC. SASAC is under the direct management of China’s State Council, and is responsible for managing all 96 centrally administered state-owned enterprises in the country. …

Imagine sitting down at your favorite restaurant and ordering a fresh filet of salmon, only to later discover that the “salmon” dish wasn’t actually salmon. As horrifying as it may sound, this scenario is actually quite common. A recent study from the conservation group Oceana found that 20% of fish samples sold to consumers in the United States were mislabeled. The study further revealed that seafood is frequently misrepresented at restaurants and smaller markets, versus fish products purchased from grocery stores. While seafood fraud has become a global problem, Norway in particular is struggling with fish products being illegally placed …

June 15, Unilever unveiled a $1 billion initiative aimed at fighting climate change in which blockchain technology will play an integral role. Traceability & transparency Unilever is establishing a €1 billion ($1.13 billion) fund that over the next ten years will be used to protect the environment: “To accelerate action, Unilever’s brands will collectively invest €1 billion in a new dedicated Climate & Nature Fund. This will be used over the next ten years to take meaningful and decisive action, with projects likely to include landscape restoration, reforestation, carbon sequestration, wildlife protection and water preservation.” The company hopes to achieve …

World’s top ecommerce firm, Amazon, filed a patent for a blockchain system that tracks goods as they move on the supply chain. Amazon’s patent — dated May 26 — describes a “distributed ledger certification” system. The document explains that the tracking solution would ensure that consumer goods that are sold on its ecommerce site are authentic. The abstract reads: “Features are disclosed for an interface for verifiable tracking of an item through a supply chain using a distributed electronic ledger.” In the detailed description section of the patent, its author explains that the system at large aims to improve “trust …