Visual Trust Initiative provides supply chain transparency

Carrefour and SGS, along with its two technology partners Transparency-One and Blippar, launched the Visual Trust initiative which produces in-depth supply chain information.

By scanning food with their smartphones using the Blippar app, Visual Trust allows Chinese shoppers to check the quality and origins of their purchases. They gain immediate access to quality certificates, test results, locations and pictures of farms, as well as nutritional advice.

In order to produce this end-to-end technical solution, each company delivers different components: SGS brings credible information; Transparency-One uses graph technology to produce supply chain transparency; and Blippar’s technology leverages advanced image recognition, computer vision and augmented reality.

Carrefour is therefore leading the way for other retailers by utilising all of these aspects — bundling big data, artificial intelligence (AI), graph technology and augmented reality — to build full supply-chain transparency from farm to fork.

“A trusted supply chain means full supply-chain transparency from farm to plate. The Visual Trust initiative launched in partnership with SGS is a key element for our customers,” said Herve Martin, national food safety and quality director for Carrefour China.

The Visual Trust initiative was launched during the National Food Safety Week in Beijing earlier this year.