Let’s put lettuce on the Blockchain — Photo by PHÚC LONG on Unsplash

What can Romaine Lettuce teach us about Blockchain?

If you haven’t already heard, there was a major lettuce recall in the US (and Canada, I’m guessing) 5 weeks ago. Apparently the lettuce was laden with E. Coli and could be fatal if suspect produce was consumed.

Before you knew it, all romaine lettuce (whether good or bad) was cleaned off from the shelves of our favorite grocery stores and we were left with no lettuce.

Some wise guy even made a comment on Twitter saying, “Imagine if congress would’ve just said, Lettuce doesn’t kill people, E-Coli kills people and had taken no action like they do after mass shootings…” hinting at a standard response over any calls for meaningful gun reform…but I digress.

For someone that starts his day with Dr. Gundry’s Green Smoothie (contains Romaine Lettuce), and also does Lettuce Boats (yummy guacamole on…you guessed it…lettuce), it was a sudden wake up call. I haven’t skipped my green smoothie in the last year or so and now I was left with no choice but to look for alternatives.

But this isn’t about me complaining about my green smoothie, warm lemon water with turmeric and honey served as an ideal replacement. I digress again.

As I started thinking, I thought to myself:

There’s something that Lettuce and I want to have in common, and that is… BLOCKCHAIN.

You read that right.

How so? Read on

Today is Dec 14, 2018 — today is the first we’re hearing that the health officials were finally able to track the suspect romaine lettuce (it has been over 4 weeks, I’m guessing) that caused over 59 people to get sick across 15 states in the US alone and 23 sick people that were hospitalized in Canada.

They still don’t know if there are other farms that contributed to this outbreak, but they now have one farm that they have confirmed.

Here’s a statement from the article linked above:

Farm (Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash)

“Investigators found the implicated strain of E. coli bacteria in the sediment of an irrigation reservoir on a farm in Santa Barbara county on California’s central coast. The farm, Adam Brothers Family Farm, has stopped shipping romaine and is helping with the investigation, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration said.”

I run a software innovation agency called HyperTrends, and my mission is to uplift the world using technology. When I read such articles, my systems thinking kicks in and I start looking for solutions.

In a world where technology is saving and changing millions of lives, how are we so far behind on being able to trace E-Coli outbreaks?

How are we still unable to scan a QR code on a lettuce package and not trace it back to the farm?

You wouldn’t believe it, but they already do this with Shipping.

China uses a similar technology to trace counterfeit goods, drugs and much more. VeChain is truly phenomenal, if you ask me.

So why are we in the US so far behind when it comes to the most important thing — food?

I love my food. Don’t ruin it!! (Photo by Lily Banse on Unsplash)

Blockchain to the rescue

The very nature of decentralized Blockchain makes it impossible to tamper with information, and provides a global way of accessing the most important information when we need it. The entire food supply-chain could essentially be stored on a global ledger allowing all parties to record and track information.

Imagine a world where:

1. The farmer registers their farm to a global “Farm Registry” — yup smart contracts already available for something similar.
2. They could generate QR codes unique to their shipment based on any specified criteria that uniquely identifies the produce for a given day/week/month/batch/shipment. These are all tracked using a QR Code registry that is specific to a given farm. You could instantly match the QR Code back to a farm in seconds.
3. These QR codes are then tied to a Shipment Contract and available to everyone who is involved in the supply chain.
4. Imagine that every phase of the supply-chain tied back to the barcode and all change-of-hands are tracked on the blockchain until the produce hits the stores. Imagine your neighborhood Trader Joe’s store then scans the same QR code finally logging it as an ultimate destination marking the end of the supply-chain process. Now we know the entire history of the product from farm to the shelf.
5. Now imagine if you eat the lettuce and get sick, all you’d need to do is identify the store or even provide them with the QR code. You could trace this back to the source within minutes and be able to lock down faulty produce immediately.
6. Now imagine that the store would email its users, or even better, if we as consumers were given a Mobile app with such notifications and the ability to scan our produce to check against advisories, we could totally prevent such disasters.

Wouldn’t that save your life?

Wouldn’t it translate to millions in savings for hospitals?

So what’s missing?

If things really look so simple, what is missing?

What is missing is a coalition between Hospitals, Retail/Grocery Outlets, Farms/Government and Consumers to demand this information, which can be built with minimal investment on the Blockchain.

So let’s have some serious discussions about this. I, for one, am appalled by the relaxed regulations when it comes to farms and waterways. These disasters will continue happening and it is important to add systems in place to contain them as quickly as possible until measures are re-introduced to prevent this from happening in the first place.

If you like what you read, send me a kudos on Twitter @anupmarwadi or just checkout some of the cool stuff I’m building on my site at HyperTrends

Until next time…