When we plan our editorial calendar, we try to reference the schedules of big events in our industry, so our coverage is timely.

So, planning for the May 2018 issue and seeing that FSMA’s Sanitary Transportation of Food (STF) rule would go into effect for small and medium-sized businesses the month before, it seemed to me that STF would probably be something that people in the industry would want to know more about.

What I did not plan a year ago is how much the experts in this field would want to talk about blockchain technology. It seems that in the last few months I have received an email with the word blockchain at least once a week. While it’s not as ubiquitous as the phrase Internet of Things, it’s definitely the new buzzword.

I still don’t have a concise way to describe blockchain technology, like I did for IoT; I used to describe her as a toaster who has a Facebook page and posts status updates on her fridge. The best I can do now is to cite other definitions, which describe it as a distributed digital ledger.

When I started interviewing people for the STF article and blockchain kept coming up, I was really only familiar with Bitcoin, which uses the technology to power the cryptocurrency payment system. To better handle all of this, I went to the only person I know who owns Bitcoin: the IT support manager at our office. We had an hour-long conversation about the trend, and when I talked about blockchain in terms of food safety, he got a spark and said, “Yeah, I can definitely see how it would be useful.”

That is the same enthusiasm that I was met with when I interviewed various experts about the application of blockchain technology to ensure food safety throughout the supply chain. Experts see this as unlocking the power of a true end-to-end verification and communication food safety tool, used throughout the supply chain, from producer to retailer, making all information visible to all parties.

Blockchain is just one of the transformative technologies to watch in the coming years. Some of the others are artificial intelligence and mixed (virtual and augmented) realities, which are especially useful in the context of plant operations.

If you’re thinking, “Yeah, these concepts aren’t that new,” I hear you, but what could be a game changer is the sophistication of the technologies and how they will be applied and used in modern manufacturing facilities.

Also, another important factor to consider is that 5G is coming soon, and that could open up many opportunities to connect people, tools, and equipment.