Blockchain Technology—A New Traceability System in Prevention of Fraud-Ridden Food Safety Issues

Abstract

In the past few decades, food fraud and safety issues have given rise to growing concerns from the society. With the purpose of efficiently detecting and preventing food safety problems and tracing the accountability, the establishment of a reliable traceability system is indispensable. For a traditional traceability system, the support of blockchain technology can effectively remove its defects in terms of data tampering and sensitive information disclosure. The paper looks into different respects such as facts identified as food fraud, factors suitable for detecting food fraud, deficiencies of blockchain application in solving food safety problems, etc., using research methods of questionnaire survey and semi-structured interview. The finding is that although blockchain is a promising technology for the food safety traceability system on account of its possession of features such as tamper-resistance and distributed ledger technology, the application of this technology in food safety protection at current stage is faced with many challenges on the way to universalization, which still needs the effort of the government and influential associations to set up laws and regulations and tackle issues concerning trust of the blockchain network and the authenticity of original data.