During the past couple of years, blockchain technology has become easier to implement for even small- and medium-size participants, thanks to large suppliers like IBM providing specific application-based blockchain technology (IBM Food Trust) and Amazon Web Services providing backbone networking architectures. In addition, smaller blockchain providers now have dedicated applications that can trace food not only to the farm and field in which it originated, but the very seed as well, while also providing complete supply chain visibility for all participants, including consumers.

You might consider blockchain’s “early days” to be about five years ago—when Walmart and IBM were first researching the viability of using blockchain in the food industry. Back then, large programming efforts were typically necessary to create a functional blockchain. Today, blockchain applications are becoming almost as easy to use as email.