Earth911 Podcast: GS1 Goes Wholechain To Track Beef Impacts

Consumers and grocers are increasingly seeking transparency in the beef supply chain to ensure quality. Vivian Tai, Director of Innovation at GS1 US, sat down with Earth911 in February 2024 to introduce GS1’s Digital Link advanced universal product code. She returns to discuss beef transparency with Jayson Berryhill, co-founder of Wholechain. Together, they developed a new standard for cattle traceability using innovative blockchain technology. Wholechain Cattle Traceability verifies compliance with animal welfare and feeding standards. Their blockchain-based system tracks and authenticates information about the entire supply chain, including where the cattle were raised, what they consumed, and their treatment.

This collaboration promises to provide more information and enable the calculation of environmental impacts like deforestation and methane emissions. It also helps companies comply with regulations such as the FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act Rule 204. This rule requires businesses to maintain accurate records of food production, processing, and distribution to quickly identify contamination sources during a foodborne illness outbreak. Wholechain’s blockchain technology has the potential to expand beyond cattle to other industries, creating transparent, sustainable, and circular global supply chains. To learn more about Wholechain, visit https://wholechain.com/. For information on GS1’s traditional barcodes and the next-generation GS1 Digital Link, visit https://www.gs1us.org/.