Alberta-based companies Hamill Farms, Canada Malting Co. (a GrainCorp company), Red Shed Malting and Last Best Brewing & Distilling have teamed up with TE-FOOD to deliver a new and engaging consumer experience.

“Bock Chain” — a new beer officially launching on February 1st — uses blockchain technology to trace the beer grain ingredients from field to can.

Blockchain technology is being used increasingly to facilitate traceability in food ingredients, giving consumers greater visibility over where their food comes from, how it’s been processed and what it has been in contact with.

The solution allows consumers to follow the way Bock Chain was produced. The barley was grown and harvested at Hamill Farms in Penhold, Canada then traveled to Canada Malting Company in Calgary Canada for malting, then to a third-party lab for quality assurance, on to Red Shed Malting in Penhold for roasting and finally to Last Best Brewing & Distilling in Calgary for brewing and packaging.

All events in the supply chain are registered on the FoodChain.

Transparency in beer

Although most people think about fresh food when they hear about food frauds, there are a lot of scandals about wine, beer, or even vintage Scotch whisky.

This project shows the way to beverage producers that supply chain transparency is the way forward. As growing demand is shown by the consumers, progressive food companies take the necessary steps to provide information beyond the basics on the physical label.

Newsfeed of the beer

Beside the food safety aspect, the Bock Chain project has another interesting advancement. Usually, farm-to-table traceability applications show just data (timestamps, locations, IDs). While these are important information pieces for food safety, the project participants wanted to go beyond that.

They wanted a more modern, richer user experience, where consumers can get a lot of visual information as well as insights of the beer production process.

The presentation resembles to the Facebook newsfeed, which people are familiar with.

Timelapse videos about cultivation and harvesting by Kakaxi cameras, inspection result document by SGS, process descriptions and photos about malting, roasting and brewing bring the Bock Chain beer closer to the visitor.