Auchan is an international retail group headquartered in France. It is present in 17 countries worldwide with 58.5 billion USD yearly consolidated revenue, and 351 000 employees.

Auchan is the 13th largest food retail in the world.

Recently, Auchan announced a strategic partnership with Alibaba to combine their online and offline expertise to explore new retail opportunities in China’s food retail sector. Now it shows the way for the food industry in a new territory: blockchain based food traceability.

The retail chain’s Vietnam branch started to use TE-FOOD back in 2016. The group has been monitoring the project since then, before deciding to implement it in five countries: France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Senegal.

As the first step, food quality and logistics related information is available in France for vegetable products (organic carrot, potato), soon rolled out to other products (chicken) followed by more countries (tomato, chicken, carrot in Italy).

Consumers of the retail chain can scan QR codes on the products and view the food history with any mobile app which is capable to read QR codes. The authenticity of all data will be verified on the FoodChain (TE-FOOD’s blockchain for global traceability information).

According to studies, 66% of consumers don’t believe the information displayed on food labels. Articles about food frauds are featured often in the media, resulting in a massive consumer distrust, which puts a growing pressure on the shoulders of food companies and food safety authorities. Farm-to-table food traceability on blockchain can be an efficient method to gain back the trust of consumers, but it is not the sole advantage of it.