Do you trust a retailer’s store brand to be of equal or better quality compared to a national brand’s goods? How would you know?

French retailer Carrefour wanted to engage consumers with its private-label products to demonstrate that it offered quality equal to or better than other brands. Carrefour started by using blockchain to track its private-label chicken from farm to store and sharing that journey with customers via a consumer app. By scanning the QR code on the package, shoppers can see how and where each chicken was raised, any treatments like antibiotics used (or not used), quality labels and where it was processed.

The experiment in customer engagement was so successful that today shoppers can scan codes on hundreds of Carrefour-branded products, including eggs, milk, cheese, fruits, pork and more. The result for Carrefour is increased sales and what it calls a “halo effect” of trust in quality that is extended across the retailer’s products.

Today, more retailers and producers like Raw Seafoods are using blockchain and IBM Food Trust for product track and trace and consumer engagement. Raw Seafoods uses the consumer app to show when and where its seafood was caught and how it made its journey to the store.

Trust in a retailer also extends to food safety, and for Walmart and Albertsons, that means the ability to trace a particular bag of leafy greens back to the farm where it was grown. As one of the founding members of IBM Food Trust, Walmart initiated leafy greens tracing in response to a foodborne illness outbreak.

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When manufacturers and distributors are blind to consumer demand as it is happening at the retail level, inefficiency and waste spread across the supply chain. In the replacement tire industry, that adds up to USD 2 billion a year, due in part to a systemic 30 percent overproduction of tires with a simultaneous 30 to 60 percent shortfall in fill rates of orders from suppliers. In short, manufacturers are building too many of the tires consumers don’t want, and failing to provide retailers with the tires that consumers do want to buy.

Industry leader American Tire Distributors (ATD) is using blockchain to tackle the problem by convening a network, Torqata, to serve all participants in the supply chain through shared, trusted information. For example, the network is building an automated replenishment system triggered by sales data from the tire retailer. The result is a demand-driven supply chain, which one study showed can improve sales with on demand availability of products by 4 percent, cut operating costs by up to 10 percent and reduce inventory by up to 30 percent.³

Retailer The Home Depot is tackling inefficiencies in supplier dispute resolution by using IBM Blockchain capabilities. With shipping and receiving data stored on the blockchain, both the vendor and The Home Depot have near-real-time visibility into what was actually shipped and unloaded at the store. Discrepancies can be resolved quickly, vendor relationships run smoothly and Home Depot can put its resources toward analytics and bringing innovation to customers.

Lessons in agility from March 2020

We’re accustomed to retail shelves and ecommerce websites stocked with the products we want to buy. Then COVID-19 happened.

We learned the hard way that our supply chains are not as agile as we might have thought. For weeks after the start of the global pandemic, store shelves around the world were bare of paper products, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes, among other goods. Shortages of personal protection supplies plagued healthcare providers as well.

Shortages were triggered by a combination of panic buying and changes in consumption patterns, with people working at home and sheltering in place instead of spending days in commercial establishments. Other shortages were the result of new demand and disruption in raw material supplies.

Whatever the cause, it took time for supply chains to respond — for example, paper products, where the just-in-time production chain runs close to full capacity in the best of times. Blockchain-powered supply chains can respond with greater agility because every participant — from raw materials suppliers through the distribution center — can see the demand signals from the retailers, where changing consumer demand drives everything up-chain. Without visibility beyond one-up, one-down, response is slowed. And shelves stay empty.

See a visual comparison of the paper products supply chain with and without blockchain.

With the addition of blockchain, a demand signal can be broadcast to all participants in the supply chain in real time. Adjustments can be made quickly to repurpose commercial products to retail packaging and distribution. And through this expanded visibility, shelves will remain stocked.

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Retail and consumer products companies around the world have been increasing their focus on sustainability over the past five years.

Since 2014, global sustainable and environmentally responsible investment is up 68 percent and now tops USD 30 trillion.¹ For consumers, sustainability includes ethically-sourced products, and they are willing to put their money behind their beliefs.

More than 75% of consumers who say sustainability is important are willing to change their purchasing habits, and of those who say it’s very important, over 70% are willing to pay a premium for brands that support recycling, practice sustainability, and/or are environmentally responsible.²

Saying your products are sustainably produced is one thing. Blockchain is making it possible for brands to demonstrate sustainability to consumers at the retail point of purchase.

Farmer Connect is a blockchain platform built on IBM Transparent Supply that connects coffee growers, traders and roasters to consumers, who scan a QR code on the coffee package to see the product’s journey from co-op to cup. Consumers can support sustainable practices with donations to programs that support the farmers who grew their coffee. Leading CPG companies are joining the independently operated platform, including J.M. Smucker and Nestle.

The Seafood Provenance Network, built on IBM Transparent Supply and convened by Norwegian IT firm Atea and the Norwegian Seafood Association, is a cross-industry collaboration. It uses blockchain’s distributed ledger technology to document the sustainable practices of naturally sea-farmed salmon — down to the farm where an individual fish was raised and the quality of the food it consumed.

Tap into the potential of blockchain to transform retail relationships and engage consumers with help from the blockchain experts at IBM.

The stories you’ve been reading here — from food to tires to home improvement and beyond — are just the beginning of blockchain’s potential to foster trust and collaboration across the retail supply chain. As retailers and consumers reset to a new normal, now is a great time to get started.

Blockchain initiatives in retail deliver value to all network participants: consumers, suppliers and retailers. Their decentralized nature encourages cooperation while preventing centralized control — helping to improve trust and transparency across all relationships. That in turn can lead to newfound partnerships and even a network of networks, where established organizations and new entrants can unlock value in ways yet imagined.

With our deep history and expertise in retail, supply chains and blockchain, IBM is ready to bring networks like these to life. Join an existing network like IBM Food Trust today. Or build your own network on IBM Blockchain Transparent Supply and go from design to proof of concept to full production in under a year. To begin, schedule a design workshop with our experts.

Why IBM? We have earned accolades from leading analysts for our blockchain for business leadership and our focus on the three most critical design points in achieving blockchain success: governance, business value and technology.

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How data is being shared has changed dramatically, with profound and lasting impacts. Hear from a noted blockchain expert, who shares concrete examples of IBM’s groundbreaking blockchain work with various industries.

“So what we intend to do with blockchain is enable all those parties to look at the same data set. They are essentially looking at the same ledger, with information that has already been validated by other parties on that network.”

- Paul Chang, Global Blockchain Sales Lead, Distribution and Industrial Markets, IBM