A Blockchain-based Supply Chain Tracing for the Swiss Dairy Use Case

Abstract

The heterogeneous nature of raw milk production, transportation, processing, transformation, and storage have been triggering concerns on the authenticity of dairy products. For the first time known, this work studied these concerns via interviews with consumers and producers of dairy products. Therefore, this paper introduces “NUTRIA” as a decentralized dairy product Supply Chain Tracing (SCT) system, designed and implemented based on real-world observations of the Swiss dairy supply chain and conducted in collaboration with dairy producers. Based on these studies and to overcome deficits of traditional and centralized SCT approaches, NUTRIA enables an automated SCT via a Blockchain-based decentralized application. NUTRIA materializes a trusted and transparent SCT, which empowers the dairy value chain. Furthermore, results of the real-world evaluations of deployed approaches within NUTRIA are covered, including social aspects and risks.