Walmart China Unveils Consumer Traceability Initiative

Walmart China announced Wednesday that it has introduced a new packaged vegetable traceability initiative. Customers at a Walmart store at Wanda Plaza in the southeastern coastal city of Xiamen can now scan certain packaged vegetables with their phone to see the vegetable’s history going back to the farm. The company hopes to eventually roll out the project nationally, and said that it hoped to achieve traceability for 40% of its packaged vegetable SKUs in China by 2020.

Walmart said that customers who scanned QR codes on the packages of vegetables could see records about when and where it was planted and the sorts of watering, fertilization, agricultural chemical treatments it underwent, as well as information about how it was processed and transported through the supply chain.

The company said it was starting the traceability initiative with just two of its suppliers, Fujian Jinxingyuan Agricultural Development Co Ltd (福建欣璟源农业发展有限公司) and Fujian Bolai Agricultural Products Co Ltd (福州博莱农产品开发有限公司). It plans to next to work with local governments and key suppliers to expand the initiative to Beijing, Chengdu, Kunming and Shenzhen before eventually rolling it out nationwide.

Walmart said it aims to work together with government and corporate partners to increase transparency and simply the supply chains for fresh vegetables in China. Globally, the company has also been active in trying to become a pioneer in applying blockchain technology to supply chain traceability in order to create secure, decentralized and unalterable records that can move through the supply chain at the same speed as the product.

Images: Walmart China