The largest Dutch supermarket chain, Albert Heijn, is planning its own blockchain makeover.

Albert Heijn wants to stamp bottles of its private-label juice with special QR-codes. Customers can scan them with an app that will show details about its origin and supply chain .

Along with major supplier Refresco, Albert Heijn will store all information related to the sourcing, production, and distribution on a distributed ledger .

It’s all part of a greater plan to provide its customers with more information. There is growing consumer concern for the origin of products – particularly fresh produce.

“In some cases the production process is easy to show, for example for vegetables and fruits from the Netherlands,” a translated press release reads. “That can be more challenging for other products, because the chain is longer, or they consist of multiple ingredients. Using blockchain, a technology that registers every step in the chain, it’s possible to show our customers how and by whom these products are made.”

Scanning a QR-code to retrieve tidbits about your juice from a blockchain is certainly cool – in a very geeky kind of way. But Albert Heijn is really just leveraging the immutable and trustless nature of blockchain tech to show off its new sustainable fruit farms.

Albert Heijn’s first ‘blockchainified’ product is its private-label orange juice. Albert Heijn source Brazilian oranges from farms that are Rainforest Alliance certified. Such producers make commitments to protect nature and the livelihoods of farmers and their families.

The company managing Albert Heijn’s blockchain implementation has also built a function that lets customers send their appreciation for the product directly to the farmers making the juice.

It is unclear whether or not this will be will be a tokenized feature, or whether a blockchain will manage it. Hard Fork has reached out to the company for further details.

Using blockchains to increase transparency is certainly a primary use-case. A few months back, a UK government food agency revealed its own plans to put meat on the blockchain , with an eye to increase regulatory compliance in the food industry.

Unfortunately, we’re yet to get any proof if such blockchain experiments are effective in improving transparency.

If you’re interested in everything blockchain, chances are you’ll love Hard Fork Decentralized. Our blockchain and cryptocurrency event is coming up soon – join us to hear from experts about the industry’s future. Check it out!

Top UK security firm to offer vaulted cryptocurrency storage

With over $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency being stolen since 2017, British security services firm G4S is taking it upon itself to try and make the wild west of cryptocurrency a little less wild.

The FTSE 250 listed firm is perhaps best known for providing security personnel, prisoner transport, and high-value money transport in around 90 countries. But it seems to think more can be done to store and protect high-value cryptoassets.

G4S announced on its blog this week that it is launching a new way to store your cryptocurrency to keep it away from the bad guys.

“In collaboration with our client, our security solution is built on a foundation of ‘vault storage’. We not only take the assets offline, but break them up into fragments that are independently without value and store them securely in our high security vaults, out of reach of cyber criminals and armed robbers alike,” Said G4S’ senior risk analyst Dominic MacIver.

G4S did not explain how these fragments are created, and how they become valueless.

A spokesperson was tight-lipped about the specifics of how it works exactly, but did explain the system is designed in such a way that if somebody was to steal a storage device (which would be nigh on impossible), it still wouldn’t give them access to the valuable cryptoasset being stored.

According to the spokesperson storage vaults are similar to more traditional gold storage with many layers of security that must be passed before access is granted.

G4S claims this should be quick and easy if the client has all the relevant security clearance. While it may be far more secure, it will never be as quick as accessing your coins on a personal hardware wallet or hot wallet.

The security firm has also not made it clear who the secure vault is designed for. The spokesperson told Hard Fork that G4S’ security solutions are bespoke to each client, based on their individual requirements and risk profile.

Even so, storing digital assets in physical “high security vaults” doesn’t sound like an option for the budget minded hodler. It appears G4S is targeting long-term, high-value hodlers who won’t want to sell as soon as the market starts to dip.

If you’re a Bitcoin Whale maybe G4S’ offline storage is what you’re looking for. My guess is most of us are better off sticking with hardware wallets and smartphones for smaller amounts of coins, even if they might be a little less secure.

Hong Kong exchange shuts down cryptocurrency mining pool after 4 years

What was once the second largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by volume, BTCC, is shutting down its mining pool later this month.

The Hong Kong-based exchange issued a notice today (spotted by CoinDesk ) stating that it will shutdown its mining pool on November 15, and bring an end to its operations entirely on November 30.

The cryptocurrency exchange has advised anyone in its mining pool to disconnect and join another pool before November 15. According to CryptoCompare , the BTCC mining pool currently mines Bitcoin, Litecoin, Super Bitcoin, and Bitcoin Cash.

It was only a few months back that BTCC’s mining pool was responsible for more than 1 percent of the total Bitcoin hashpower. Since then, however, numbers have been steadily declining to the point that BTCC’s mining pool doesn’t even register on blockchain.info.

BTCC cites “business adjustments” as the motivating factor for shutting down its mining pool. Presumably, it is no longer a profit making enterprise for the exchange.

Indeed, research from blockchain research group, Diar, found miners had earned $4.7 billion this year , but are struggling to turn a profit.

Coincidentally, this news comes in the same week in which research was published that further criticizes the energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining.