Fast food is the ultimate convenience. Whether you take the drive-thru, order on an app, or park and walk into a local restaurant, a quick meal is cheap and satisfying — especially the fries. Of course, if the food makes people sick, that’s an entirely different story.
Unfortunately, this is what happened in October 2024 at fast food giant McDonald’s: An E. coli outbreak sickened 75 people across 13 states, leaving one person dead and two seriously ill. The E. coli bacteria was quickly linked to the slivered onions sourced from a facility in Colorado. McDonald’s pulled the relevant menu item and has since expressed confidence that the tainted products are gone from its supply chain. Notably, it has also stopped sourcing onions from the factory and will no longer work with the supplier, BBC News reports.
It's fortunate that the E. coli outbreak was so quickly sourced to the offending onions; still, a lack of transparency and traceability inside food supply chains is a persistent issue, according to the World Economic Forum. Effective communication among touchpoints is essential for supply chain resilience, WE Forum continues, yet 45% of supply chain leaders only have visibility into first-tier suppliers. This opacity “results in an inability to efficiently track and trace items in real time, as well as difficulty in proving the provenance of goods. A lack of tracking results in a lack of quality assurance, as well as the inability for thorough compliance reporting.”
One solution? Blockchain. This technology is “decentralized, secure, transparent and immutable: Blockchain enables value to be exchanged without the need for a third-party authority and has the potential to overcome several enduring challenges in supply chain management,” writes ASCM Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Rennie. This includes provenance tracking, a method for determining the authenticity of goods and tracing ingredients — whether tainted or not — directly back to the source. “Almost one in 10 people get sick due to food-borne disease worldwide each year, and close to half a million die. Yet with improved traceability, food recalls can happen faster, and the source of contamination can be determined quicker,” WE Forum explains.
By January 2026, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s new food traceability requirements will require food manufactures, processors and packers to share information with other entities in the supply chain. (Note this went into effect in January 2023 but will soon be regulated and enforced.) Currently, many organizations are struggling to meet these goals, per Supply Chain Dive. They are wrestling with compliance challenges related to the level of labeling, reporting metrics and the FDA investigation process. Further, warehouse management systems vary significantly across the industry and may not be able to capture the data necessary to follow the new requirements without significant upgrades or overall system replacement.
Meeting the need
The global and highly interconnected nature of our economy demands efficient and innovative tools to keep networks running smoothly. Supply chain professionals can position themselves to maximize these solutions by becoming transformational leaders. This requires systems thinking, digital fluency and analytical expertise. Earning ASCM’s Certified in Transformation for Supply Chain (CTSC) designation will help you tap into your understanding of supply chain strategy, prove your ability to lead a major tech project and set you apart from the competition. Enroll today, and take your first step toward smarter, safer supply chains.
