The Walmart Food Safety Collaboration Center

The Walmart Food Safety Collaboration Center serves as a network hub for the global retailer and its partners in the pursuit of food safety solutions for China’s vast food supply chain. Projects focus around three ideals: Innovation, Education and Policy Support.

Innovation

In addition to the blockchain project with IBM and Tsinghua University, Wal-Mart is working with other universities on food safety tools. For example, Wal-Mart and IBM are working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Chinese universities on a predictive analytical tool to better forecast where an incident related to economic-motivated adulteration of food might occur.

Education

“We know that education is key to prevention, and so a host of work that we’ll do over the next few years is under the education pillar,” said Frank Yiannis, vice-president for food safety at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart awarded a grant to a non-profit organization in China called the China Children and Teenagers Fund that provides food safety education developed for children. “We need to start people early in life in terms of proper food safety behaviors and attitudes,” he notes.

Policy Support

The Policy Support pillar builds on the value that public and private partnerships can bring to food safety improvement initiatives.