GS Retail launches blockchain data service 'B-Link'... "Adding trust to products"

Luxury Purchase Platform 'Guhada' Jointly Developed After Investment

GS Retail has launched 'B-Link,' a blockchain technology-based data service that allows easy management of product production and distribution history.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] GS Retail announced on the 28th that it has launched ‘B-Link,’ a blockchain technology-based data service that allows easy management of product production and distribution history.

GS Retail developed B-Link through about a year of collaboration from September last year to July this year, after investing in ‘Guhada,’ an overseas luxury goods purchasing platform with strengths in blockchain technology, in February last year. B-Link is a service that uses blockchain technology, which is tamper-proof, to transparently share product-related information among all parties involved in the entire process from production to distribution and consumption of specific products such as food and industrial goods. It is similar to IBM’s blockchain-based food traceability service, Food Trust.

In the case of agricultural products, key information throughout the entire process from production to consumption?such as production location, harvest time, storage methods, distribution routes, and distribution processes?is uploaded to the blockchain, allowing any participant including producers, distributors, and consumers to check and use the information. GS Retail conducted a B-Link application test early last year on the representative fruit ‘Sanji-ae Apples’ sold on home shopping channel GS Shop. As a result, the sales of apples provided with information such as producers and production sites, temperature and humidity during cultivation, temperature graphs of storage warehouses, and videos of product sorting sites through B-Link increased by 27% compared to previous broadcasts.

With the official launch of B-Link as a universal service, GS Retail first applied it to pork sold at GS The Fresh. Local food omnichannel company Mr. Appa also uses the B-Link service. Mr. Appa is a company that sells locally sourced agricultural products directly traded with farms both online and offline, and provides early morning delivery in the metropolitan area, Chungcheong Province, and Gyeongsang Province.

A GS Retail official said, “Simply put, B-Link is a service that can attach a certificate like a luxury brand to all kinds of products, from a single watermelon to a necklace, and any company can use it,” adding, “We will strive to make it a service symbolizing trust.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.