Blockchain providers are working hard to gain the acceptance of food and beverage processors—no matter their size, and standard datasets like GS1 are helping to define the rules for consistent information handling.

Bühler and Whitworth Bros—the UK’s largest miller—have opened a high-tech flour plant called Mill E3 at Whitley Bridge in Yorkshire, England. The data generated and analyzed at the Whitley Bridge plant will drive the evolution of milling technology from the current data assisted mill into a plant capable of using its own process parameters in a closed loop to optimize production. This development of the self-adjusting mill will be the precursor to the SmartMill.

Even in the U.S. an exhaustive track and trace system, which is available to all participants—including small producers and farms—and additional members in the supply chain, right up to the consumer, has been elusive. The FDA, in its recent proposed rule, "Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods," is a good starting point in defining what kind of data needs to be kept and where new data should originate, but it doesn't get to specifics in implementation.

Blockchain technology allows retailers, suppliers and anyone who has access to the software, to have real-time information on a product’s origination and the stops it made along the way before it reaches its destination. However, when it comes to olive oil, blockchain can be useful in determining provenance and delivery path, but not the purity or freshness of the product.