It has copy on its site stating it "allows multiple different parties to securely interact with the same universal source of truth."
I think the fact that IBM is running this, and not Walmart, is actually a plus. The suppliers don't have to worry about Walmart itself making data changes. Of course the details will vary, but I highly doubt the platform allows the account owner to unilaterally make changes to this source of truth. It's totally against the point of the project.
But all of that would be vastly simpler with a central trusted third party.
At the end the job is technically quite simple. Maintaining a semi-public database. It's pretty black or white.
Equifax was a trusted 3rd party with no skin in the game.
Facebook was too (at least it was trusted by the west, the chinese never trusted it).
As Walmart is the sole owner of the database anyway, nothing is gained by using a blockchain.
Walmart is making this change to improve something. They obviously already have a database somewhere with suppliers and shipments and to think they don't is just crazy.
Sure, contract law. But why when there is a technical solution? If there is a dispute that then has to be settled in the courts with your solution that costs more money and time. The 6 days to 2 minutes might end up way longer after amortizing time spent dealing with trails and compliance and ensuring suppliers are doing things right.
I think I don't see any of the multiple trust relations solved in this case.
Walmart still can't trust the producer to itemize the physical product correctly.
The producer still can't trust Walmart to not change the item already in the database (see mining discussion above).
What trust relation do you have in mind, that is solved with this blockchain implementation, and that wouldn't be solved with a ordinary database with signed entries?
The article states this initiative "helps reduce waste, better manage contamination cases and improve transparency"
This is how I envision this system working. I think the fact this is produce and not normal inventory is key.
Produce is produced by farmers, transported by shipping companies, stored in warehouses, and eventually ends up on a shelf after a long chain of custody.
Reducing waste and contamination sounds like a tracking system. So every food item gets an ID and as it moves through the system it gets logged with time, location, and so on. Pretty standard, and yes, totally doable with a database.
But this project also helps to improve transparency. Transparency to who?
The previous actors in our example. The farmer, the shipper, storage, maybe inspectors.
They have no inherit reason to trust each other. The last shipping company will blame the warehouse for the moldy food. The warehouse will blame the farmer. The inspectors said they approved of it but obviously its gone bad.
Maybe the 6 days to track this produce before wasn't really in tracking it, but dealing with the human element of the chain of custody. Two minutes to pull up a verified log of events.