Applying blockchain technology to improve agri-food traceability: A review of development methods, benefits and challenges

Abstract

Traceability plays a vital role in food quality and safety management. Traditional Internet of Things (IoT) traceability systems provide the feasible solutions for the quality monitoring and traceability of food supply chains. However, most of the IoT solutions rely on the centralized server-client paradigm that makes it difficult for consumers to acquire all transaction information and to track the origins of products.Blockchain is a cutting-edge technology that has great potential for improving traceability performance by providing security and full transparency. However, the benefits, challenges and development methods of blockchain-based food traceability systems are not yet fully explored in the current literature. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to review the blockchain technology characteristics and functionalities, identify blockchain-based solutions for addressing food traceability concerns, highlight the benefits and challenges of blockchain-based traceability systems implementation, and help researchers and practitioners to apply blockchain technology based food traceability systems by proposing an architecture design framework and suitability application analysis flowchart of blockchain based food traceability systems. The results of this study contribute to better understanding and knowledge on how to improve the food traceability by developing and implementing blockchain-based traceability systems. The paper provides valuable information for researchers and practitioners on the use of blockchain-based food traceability management and has a positive effect on the improvement of food sustainability.

Big data for corporate social responsibility: blockchain use in Gioia del Colle DOP

“…Feng and Wang wrote an article about blockchain-based solutions for addressing food traceability concerns, traceability systems implementation by proposing an architecture design framework and suitability application analysis flowchart of blockchain based food traceability systems (Feng et al 2020 ). In a similar way, the article by Demestichas also deals with the topic of traceability in terms of the Internet of Things and Blockchain, but also gives a great vivacity to the existing literature (Demestichas et al 2020 ).…”

Filling the trust gap of food safety in food trade between the EU and China: An interconnected conceptual traceability framework based on blockchain

“…According to an analysis by Feng et al. (2020) of relevant studies published between 2005 and 2019, research interest in blockchain technology dramatically increased between 2017 and 2019, especially for studies related to the keywords “blockchain‐based traceability.” It has been shown that blockchain‐based traceability has a significant influence on food supply chains in terms of transparency and accountability (Kshetri, 2018; Tama et al., 2017), traceability and fraud prevention (Hang et al., 2020), security and authentication, cybersecurity and protection, etc. (Banerjee et al., 2017).…”

“…Blockchain technology provides transactional distributed‐ledger functionalities without a centralized trusted authority (Pearson et al., 2019; Wong et al., 2019). It is regarded as a promising technology that can help build trust mechanisms for transparency and security issues (Feng et al., 2020; Galvez et al., 2018). Updates in the ledger are immutable, and cryptographic time‐stamping is performed for serial recording.…”

Real-Time Identification of Irrigation Water Pollution Sources and Pathways with a Wireless Sensor Network and Blockchain Framework

“…Blockchain technology’s robust consensus-based security architecture that does not require a central certifying authority also renders it particularly suitable for the authentication of ownership rights [ 17 , 18 ]. Accordingly, blockchain transaction records can reference uploaded and secured data [ 19 , 20 ]. Currently, the two most used blockchain transaction models are the unspent transaction output (UTXO) model and the account-based model.…”