Last week, the world's largest food and beverage company and a French supermarket chain announced a blockchain pilot aimed at providing transparency to consumers on the supply chain of a leading brand of infant formula. Leveraging the Hyperledger-based Food Trust platform, consumers can scan a QR code with a smartphone to access information on the formula's path from dairy to shelf. In related news, this week, one of the world's leading fish farming operations announced a similar solution, also built on the Food Trust Platform, which allows consumers to pull up the CV of salmon, including information regarding the fish's origin and health history, by scanning a QR code. And last week, an American logistics giant announced the successful delivery of a blockchain-verified beef shipment from Kansas to Tokyo, for a meal that was served to U.S. Embassy and Japanese officials.

The aerospace division of a U.S.-based conglomerate recently partnered with Hyperledger to develop an online marketplace for the highly regulated used airline parts industry that seeks to provide certainty to buyers that critical parts such as engines and landing gears meet FAA requirements. An Italian luxury sports car manufacturer is also turning to a blockchain solution for quickly and securely authenticating sales of its "heritage" vehicles, which require more than 800 certification checks conducted at company headquarters before they can be resold through a network of trusted partners.

In a final notable development, this week, HashCash announced its partnership with a consortium of global automobile manufacturers, a mining company and battery manufacturers to build a blockchain supply chain network to meet demands for authenticating the ethical sourcing of minerals such as cobalt, tungsten and lithium, which are often surrounded by allegations of child labor.

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