Envisible, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., announced a partnership with Mastercard, Purchase, N.Y., to bring more supply chain visibility to food systems.

Envisible’s Wholechain traceability system will be powered by Mastercard’s blockchain-based Provenance Solution and used by Topco Associates, LLC, Elk Grove Village, Ill., to help its member-owners’ supermarkets trace and highlight the origin of seafood. Topco is working with its member grocery chains to pilot the use of the technology to provide better line of sight into ethical sourcing and environmental compliance of the seafood selection sold at their stores. The first of several species to be tracked will be salmon, cod and shrimp.

“Given consumers’ expectations for reliable information about the food that they eat, we’re excited to partner with Food City and Envisible on this trace and provenance solution pilot and the promise of Envisible’s Wholechain solution,” says Scott Caro, senior vice president of fresh, Topco.

“Using Envisible Wholechain, powered by Mastercard, our grocers will be able to stock shelves with confidence and also be able to pinpoint issues in the food chain during any unfortunate events such as recalls,” adds Dan Glei, executive vice president, merchandising and marketing, Food City.

Mastercard has filed over 100 blockchain patents, and built a permissioned blockchain network that is integrated with its global network and provides a secure tamper-proof ledger, high transaction throughput, enhanced security, transaction privacy and support for multiple use cases with one deployment.

Built on its proprietary blockchain technology, the Mastercard Provenance Solution is industry-agnostic and helps brands provide visibility into product journeys and a clear record of traceability.

“The identity of things is becoming even more important as consumers raise demands for transparency,” says Deborah Barta, senior vice president, innovation and startup engagement, Mastercard. “Our provenance solution leverages Mastercard’s established network capabilities, globally-scaled technology and services, such as payments and counterfeit programs. This allows us to deliver trust, financial inclusion and back-end efficiencies to the marketplace.”

“The sheer volume of global trade makes it difficult to track the journey and authenticity of food,” says Mark Kaplan, partner, Envisible. “We’re excited that Mastercard shares our vision and is driving consumer trust by bringing its significant expertise in using technology at scale with commercial-grade processing speeds, data flexibility and privacy and security standards to an area that has previously been considerably opaque.”