Share this article
An Asia-Pacific Blockchain Consortium is Forming Around Food Supply Chain
PwC Australia is partnering up with Alibaba and others on a trial that will find it seeking to provided added trust to the food supply chain.
By Pete Rizzo
Updated Sep 11, 2021, 1:22 p.m. Published May 22, 2017, 3:21 p.m.
An advisor to a new consortium effort has revealed work is underway on a new supply chain trial with Chinese tech giant Alibaba.
Revealed today at CoinDesk's Consensus 2017 blockchain conference, the China-based e-commerce giant is reportedly collaborating with New Zealand dairy cooperative Fonterra, vitamin and supplement supplier Blackmores, as well as Australian Post and New Zealand Post on an effort to reduce fraud in the food supply chain.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
The project was discussed in a talk by PwC's Digital Asset Services (DAS) division (first announced last November as a project called Vulcan), part of an effort to help enterprise businesses become more comfortable with advances in open, public blockchain protocols.
In interview, DAS founder Robert Allen explained that regional food safety is a focus area for PwC Australia and his team are helping advise the consortium with expertise developed within the DAS business.
Allen told CoinDesk:
"We're looking at the use of blockchain from a requirements perspective. A lot of other supply chain trials are provenance based, but we're looking at it more from a protocol perspective to achieve end-to-end safety of the project."
The work is an extension of DAS's earlier work to help enterprises launch digital assets, one that showcases how its architecture – designed in partnership with startups Bloq, Libra and Netki – can be flexible enough to satisfy multiple types of use cases.
"What we're demonstrating is that the Vulcan-type layer actually is as applicable to one set of use cases as another," he said. "We're finding we are able to apply it to remittance as much as supply chain."
Allen said the project will be run over the next 13 weeks, with consortium teams working together on the trust framework, functional requirements and a technical proof of concept.
Bottles image via Shutterstock
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Bitcoin Holds Near $92K as Selling Cools, but Demand Still Lags
ETF inflows have finally turned positive, but weak on-chain activity, defensive derivatives positioning, and negative spot CVD show a market stabilizing without the conviction needed for a sustained move higher.
What to know:
- Bitcoin markets in Asia are stabilizing but remain structurally weak, with short-term holders dominating supply.
- U.S. ETF flows have shown signs of stabilization, but on-chain activity remains near cycle lows, indicating weak capital inflows.
- Bitcoin and Ether have seen price recoveries driven by spot demand and improved sentiment, while gold is supported by U.S. labor data and Fed rate cut expectations.
Top Stories
