IBM Food Trust is a network built on the IBM Blockchain designed to directly connect more people in the food supply system and promote traceability. It is built on Hyperledger Fabric, which the United Nations noted as one of the most commonly used blockchains in seafood value. ^[1][9]

A study from the conservation group Oceana found that 20% of fish samples sold to consumers in the United States were mislabeled and that seafood is frequently misrepresented at restaurants and smaller markets, versus fish products purchased from grocery stores. ^[11]

In May 2020, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations published a report titled “Blockchain Application in Seafood Value Chains” to raise governmental and international awareness on the role of blockchain in the seafood industry.

The report mentioned that "[IBM Food Trust] is the best example of an enterprisewide blockchain solution.

IBM’s Food Trust network offers a collaborative ecosystem for growers, processors, wholesalers, distributors, manufacturers, retailers and even consumers looking to achieve enhanced visibility and accountability across the food supply chain."

Norway in particular is struggling with fish products being illegally placed on the market, leading Atea to announce a collaboration with IBM and the Norwegian Seafood Association, Sjømatbedriftene, to use blockchain as a source for sharing supply chain data and to promote a safer, transparent, and sustainable network.

They created the IBM Blockchain Transparent Supply, specifically for the Norwegian seafood sector, giving Norway’s seafood industry their own governance model in regards to data sharing and who gets to see what information.

The Food Trust network provides authorized users with immediate access to food supply chain data, including the complete history and current location of any individual food item, as well as certifications, test data and temperature data.

All food ecosystem participants can join Food Trust, through tiered modules available for purchase in Marketplace.

Users can connect to partners and define what information is shared when they define their transactions.^[2]

Use of IBM Cloud offers features to protect information including:

The network contains the following modules: ^[5]

Activity Module - Users can monitor their organization's Food Trust Activity, including data added, user logins, and module usage.

Certificates Module - Users can manage, view, and share their organization's facility Certificates, including inspection records, test results, and renewal dates.

Data Module - Users can upload, download, and view their organization's products and facilities and access control policy.

Documents Module - Users can upload, view, and manage their organization's documents, view documents shared with your organization, and share documents with other organizations.

Fresh Insights Module - Users can check the freshness status of their organization's food products along their supply chains, from farm to store, and share data with authorized organizations.

Home Module - Users can view statistical information about their organization's IBM Food Trust usage, logins, and uploads.

Membership Module - Users can view and modify their organization's Food Trust membership plan and selected modules.

Onboarding Module - Users can add their organization's users, products, facilities and select an access control policy. They can create product supply chain scenarios to facilitate the process.

Trace Module - Users can trace their specific product instances along the supply chain, from farm to store.

Users Module - Users can manage and modify their organization users, including assigning roles and authorizing network activity.

Business Users must complete the following onboarding tasks:

Supply Chain Experts must complete the following onboarding tasks (Onboarding Team Member role required):

Data Integration Experts must complete the following onboarding tasks (Onboarding Team Member role required):

At a minimum, food product Suppliers register, upload, and share the following IBM Food Trust™ data types (additional data types are supported but not required): ^[7]

To enable product tracing, IBM Food Trust™ implements several Data Types.

Each data type is an XML Message in a unique format, derived from GS1 Business Message Standards and GS1 XML 3 Standards.

^[8]

With the exception of Facility Certificates, each message uploaded to IBM Food Trust must be in the supported XML format for its data type.

The following data types are implemented by the IBM Food Trust solution:

Master Data - Describes organization facility locations (GLNs or IBM Food Trust Facility IDs) and trade items (GTINs or IBM Food Trust Product IDs), and are expected to be largely static. Three types of Master Data are supported by IBM Food Trust:

Business Transactions - Three types of business transactions are recognized by IBM Food Trust: Purchase Order, Despatch Advice, and Receive Advice.

EPCIS Events - Electronic Product Code Information Service (EPCIS) Events correspond to the GS1 EPCIS XML message type, and describe trade item observations, transformations, and creation and removal, for both individual and aggregated objects.

The GS1 EPCIS standard is used to codify the event data that members upload to the network.

An EPCIS event specifies the What, Where, When, and Why of an event, for one or more trade items.

Six EPCIS event types are recognized by IBM Food Trust: Commission, Decommission, Observation, Transformation, Aggregation, and Disaggregation

Certificate Data - Describes facility certificates, such as certificate binaries with descriptive metadata for the auditing body, audit dates and scores, expiration dates and location GLNs, e.g.

Payload - Generic string-encoded payloads can be submitted to IBM Food Trust.

Cryptographic Signing - Submit encoded public signing keys to IBM Food Trust with an XML format.

Data is owned by the registered company or organization that owns the data prior to it being uploaded to Food Trust.

Users can set permissions that govern what data can be seen and by whom, and is determined solely by the owner of the data.

Data uploaded by a third party is owned by the original owner.

^[3]

The Food Trust Network supports: ^[6]