Blockchain Papers

Guilain Leduc, Sylvain Kubler, Jean‐Philippe Georges

No abstract is available for this record.

Jamilya Nurgazina, Udsanee Pakdeetrakulwong, Thomas Moser, Gerald Reiner

The lack of transparency and traceability in food supply chains (FSCs) is raising concerns among consumers and stakeholders about food information credibility, food quality, and safety. Insufficient records, a lack of digitalization and standardization of processes, and information exchange are some of the most critical challenges, which can be tackled with disruptive technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs). Studies provide evidence that novel technological and sustainable practices in FSCs are necessary. This paper aims to describe current practical applications of DLTs and IoT in FSCs, investigating the challenges of implementation, and potentials for future research directions, thus contributing to achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Within a systematic literature review, the content of 69 academic publications was analyzed, describing aspects of implementation and measures to address the challenges of scalability, security, and privacy of DLT, and IoT solutions. The challenges of high costs, standardization, regulation, interoperability, and energy consumption of DLT solutions were also classified as highly relevant, but were not widely addressed in literature. The application of DLTs in FSCs can potentially contribute to 6 strategic SDGs, providing synergies and possibilities for more sustainable, traceable, and transparent FSCs.

A. Aldrighetti, Maurizio Canavari, Martin Hingley

Blockchain has been described as a breakthrough Information and Communication Technology having the potential to ensure safe, immutable and transparent information exchange between actors. This study attempts to foresee whether Blockchain will play an important role in traceability management and how this innovation is expected to change the agri-food sector's future, using a Delphi group discussion with experts. According to our results, blockchain is potentially recognised as a decentralised system able not only to harmonise safety and quality standards but also to reduce bureaucracy. Greater efficiency and reliability of the system would lead to the establishment and coordination of new supply chain relationships.

Mohamed M. Ahmed, Chantal Taconet, Mohamed Ould, Sophie Chabridon · 5 authors

involves many stakeholders. From the traceability data, contractual decisions may be taken such as incident detection, validation of the delivery or billing. The stakeholders require transparency in the whole process. The combination of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the blockchain paradigms helps in the development of automated and trusted systems. In this context, ensuring the quality of the IoT data is an absolute requirement for the adoption of those technologies. In this article, we propose an approach to assess the data quality (DQ) of IoT data sources using a logistic traceability smart contract developed on top of a blockchain. We select the quality dimensions relevant to our context, namely accuracy, completeness, consistency and currentness, with a proposition of their corresponding measurement methods. We also propose a data quality model specific to the logistic chain domain and a distributed traceability architecture. The evaluation of the proposal shows the capacity of the proposed method to assess the IoT data quality and ensure the user agreement on the data qualification rules. The proposed solution opens new opportunities in the development of automated logistic traceability systems.

Somdip Dey, Suman Saha, Amit Kumar Singh, Klaus D. McDonald-Maier

Food safety is an important issue in today’s world. The traditional agri-food production system does not offer easy traceability of the produce at any point of the supply chain, and hence, during a food-borne outbreak, it is very difficult to sift through food production data to track produce and the origin of the outbreak. In recent years, the blockchain based food production system has resolved this challenge; however, none of the proposed methodologies makes the food production data easily accessible, traceable and verifiable by consumers or producers using mobile/edge devices. In this paper, we propose FoodSQRBlock (Food Safety Quick Response Block), a blockchain technology based framework that digitises the food production information and makes it easily accessible, traceable and verifiable by the consumers and producers by using QR codes. We also propose a large-scale integration of FoodSQRBlock in the cloud to show the feasibility and scalability of the framework, as well as give an experimental evaluation to prove this.

Marion Garaus, Horst Treiblmaier

In the last decades, numerous food scandals have attracted policy makers' interest and subsequently induced retailers to actively improve food safety. Blockchain technology allows consumers to track the flow of food products and reduce food fraud, such as counterfeiting, dilution, or adulteration. Using three experiments conducted with Austrian business students as well as an online convenience sample, we investigate how the traceability of food products impacts consumers' trust in the retailer and subsequently influences consumers' retailer choice. Our model further considers retailer familiarity and the disclosure of blockchain benefits as important moderators of the impact of blockchain-based traceability systems on trust in the retailer. The model was tested using ANOVA, ANCOVA, and Hayes’ PROCESS models. In terms of fostering consumer trust, the findings show that retailers who are unfamiliar to consumers profit more from the use of blockchain technology than do better-known retailers. Moreover, informing consumers about specific blockchain benefits strengthens the positive effects of a blockchain-based traceability system.

Takio Uesugi, Yoshinobu Shijo, Masayuki Murata

Securing the traceability of products in a supply chain is an urgent issue. Recently, supply-chain systems that use a blockchain have been proposed. In these systems, the blockchain is used as a common database shared among supply chain parties to secure the integrity and reliability of distribution information such as ownership transfer records. These systems thus secure a high level of traceability in the supply chain. Considering future scalability of supply chains, public permissionless blockchain (PPBC) is a promising approach. In this approach, however, distribution information that should be kept private is made public since the information recorded in PPBC can be read by anyone. We therefore propose a method for preserving privacy while securing traceability in a supply chain system using PPBC. The proposed method preserves privacy by concealing distribution information via encryption. In addition, the proposed method ensures distribution among legitimate supply chain parties while concealing their blockchain addresses by using zero-knowledge proofs.We implement the proposed method on Ethereum smart contracts and verify the system behavior. The results show that the proposed method works as expected, and that system usage cost per distribution party is at most 2.2 × 106 gas units in terms of blockchain transaction fees.

Pamela Danese, Riccardo Mocellin, Pietro Romano

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on blockchain (BC) adoption for preventing counterfeiting by investigating BC systems where different options for BC feeding and reading complement the use of BC technology. By grounding on the situational crime prevention, this study analyses how BC systems can be designed to effectively prevent counterfeiting. Design/methodology/approach This is a multiple-case study of five Italian wine companies using BC to prevent counterfeiting. Findings This study finds that the desired level of upstream/downstream counterfeiting protection that a brand owner intends to guarantee to customers through BC is the key driver to consider in the design of BC systems. The study identifies which variables are relevant to the design of feeding and reading processes and explains how such variables can be modulated in accordance with the desired level of counterfeiting protection. Research limitations/implications The cases investigated are Italian companies within the wine sector, and the BC projects analysed are in the pilot phase. Practical implications The study provides practical suggestions to address the design of BC systems by identifying a set of key variables and explaining how to properly modulate them to face upstream/downstream counterfeiting. Originality/value This research applies a new perspective based on the situational crime prevention approach in studying how companies can design BC systems to effectively prevent counterfeiting. It explains how feeding and reading process options can be configured in BC systems to assure different degrees of counterfeiting protection.

Nguyễn Minh Sơn, Thanh Lâm Nguyễn, Phan Thị Mai Hương, Lam Thanh Hien

No abstract is available for this record.

Ushnish Sengupta, Henry Michael Kim

This research summarizes the implementation of blockchain technology in the food and agriculture industry in Canada. Our research indicates that blockchain solutions are an existing and proven set of technologies. We also describe how blockchain based supply chain traceability information has many more benefits than its current use for food safety and product recalls. We recommend that costs for development of blockchain based solutions should also be distributed across stakeholders, and apportioned by the relevant industry associations. Our research indicates that adoption of blockchain technology in agriculture will achieve critical mass earlier when the industry applies a consortium approach, in a regulatory environment that is supported by government. This report also makes recommendations relevant to the integration of blockchain for end consumers of food.

Massimiliano Giacalone, Vito Santarcangelo, Vincenzo Donvito, Oriana Schiavone · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Xin Lin, Shu-Chen Chang, Tung‐Hsiang Chou, Shih‐Chih Chen · 5 authors

Establishing a blockchain food traceability system (BFTS) is increasingly important and urgent to resolve the contradiction between consumers' intention regarding safe food selections and the spread of polluted foods. Using the advantages of blockchain, such as immutability, decentralization, openness, and anonymity, we can build trusted food traceability systems based on these important characteristics. With reliable information, traceability from production to sales can effectively improve food safety. In this research, multiple models, namely, the information success model (ISS) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) are formed into a conceptual integrated framework to study the intentions' influenced factors of BFTS technology for Chinese consumers to help ensure food safety and the quality of Chinese organic food products. A face-to-face questionnaire survey with 300 valid responses was analyzed by Partial Least Square from the Chinese consumers focusing on the organic food products. This study found that the attitude and perceived behavioral control qualities significantly and positively affect the usage intention in adopting BFTS, while the subjective norms are positively but not significantly correlation with the usage intention in using BFTS. The above results will inform suggestions for productors and academics along with implications to promote BFTS' usage intention.

Tarun Kumar Agrawal, Vijay Kumar, Rudrajeet Pal, Lichuan Wang · 5 authors

Traceability has emerged as a prime requirement for a multi-tier and multi-site production. It enables visibility and caters to the consumer requirements of transparency and quality assurance. Textile and clothing industry is one such example that requires traceability implementation to address prevailing problems of information asymmetry and low visibility. Customers find it difficult to access product data that can facilitate ethical buying practices or assure product authenticity. Besides, it is challenging for stakeholders to share crucial information in an insecure environment with risk of data manipulations and fear of losing information advantage. In this context, this study investigates and proposes a blockchain-based traceability framework for traceability in multi-tier textile and clothing supply chain. It conceptualizes the interaction of supply chain partners, and related network architecture at the organizational level and smart contract and transaction validation rules at the operational level. To illustrate the application of the proposed framework, the study presents an example of organic cotton supply chain using blockchain with customized smart contract and transaction rules. It finally demonstrates the applicability of the developed blockchain by testing it under two parameters. The proposed system can build a technology-based trust among the supply chain partners, where the distributed ledger can be used to store and authenticate supply chain transactions. Further, the blockchain-based traceability system would provide a unique opportunity, flexibility, and authority to all partners to trace-back their supply network and create transparent and sustainable supply chain.

Angelo Marchese, Orazio Tomarchio

No abstract is available for this record.

Sotiris P. Gayialis, Evripidis P. Kechagias, Grigorios D. Konstantakopoulos, Georgios A. Papadopoulos · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Ralph Kwadwo Osei, Marco Medici, Martin Hingley, Maurizio Canavari

<abstract> This study investigates the attitudes and perceptions of businesses and consumers towards the application of Blockchain technology (BCT) to fresh produce supply chains. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups (FG) were performed with fresh produce company managers and consumers, respectively. The fresh produce sector, in this context, concerns the fresh and chill chain, value-added vegetables, fruits and salads and the ingredients of these used in further food value-added processes and products. A total of five themes were identified as factors influencing BCT adoption: the novelty of the technology, supply chain characteristics, open data issues, cost-benefit analysis, and role of public stakeholders. From these, twelve sub-themes were developed and discussed. Findings provide a framework with opportunities and challenges that the fresh produce system must face in adopting decentralised systems for managing supply chain data like BCT. </abstract>

Li Yan, Sun Yin-He, Yang Qian, Sun Zhi-Yu · 6 authors

The use of new technologies to empower the social co-governance of food safety is a consensus in the theoretical and practical fields of food safety governance modernization. Based on the innovative features of the block chain such as non-tampering, consensus mechanism, and a smart contract, this paper proposes a new method to facilitate the achievement of the effect of social co-governance of food safety. Firstly, it provides a profound analysis of the causes of food safety problems and the drawbacks of traditional centralized supervision, and proposes a solution with decentralized features and the design process of smart contracts to realize the chaining and integration of finite credible data in the process of food circulation; secondly, it constructs a mathematical model through finite credible data on the chain and obtains the probabilistic consensus results of food safety through rigorous derivation; Finally, the scheme, model and algorithm are effectively practiced through the experimental environment of mature block chain platform and provincial food supervision platform. The example shows that the market failure problem in food safety can be greatly alleviated by the non-tampering feature of block chain; the consensus results formed by the credible data uploading, model construction and data derivation through smart contracts can greatly alleviate the problem of involution of government administrative supervision; and the social co-governance capacity of food safety can be improved through information sharing with the active synergy of multiple subjects of co-governance.

Lodovica Marchesi, Katiuscia Mannaro, Raffaele Porcu

Supply chain management, product provenance and quality certification are among the first and most popular applications of blockchain technology, due to the inherent trust and inalterability provided by the blockchain technology. However, the proposed supply chain management systems based on blockchain and smart contract technology tend to be specific to the particular production and production process. In this paper we present a general-purpose approach for the agri-food supply chain management, proposing a system that can be configured for most agri-food productions. The primary purpose is to provide a methodology to facilitate and make more efficient the development of such applications. It is based on general smart contracts and apps interacting with the same smart contracts, which are configured, starting from the description of the specific system to be managed, given using json files. A case study on olive oil production is described, to show how our approach works.

Akshay Patidar, Monica Sharma, Rajeev Agrawal, Kuldip Singh Sangwan

No abstract is available for this record.

Atima Tharatipyakul, Suporn Pongnumkul

Blockchain technology is a secure distributed ledger for lists of transactions, which has immense potential to solve traditional agri-food supply chain issues. An increasing number of research on blockchain-based traceability applications aims to improve food quality and safety. Still, relatively few works considered user interfaces when developing and reporting their applications, which could lead to usability issues. This paper aims to address this gap by reviewing existing works from user interface perspectives. We gathered 25 review papers on blockchain or agri-food supply chain and 39 research papers that presented screenshots of user interfaces of related applications. We first reviewed 7 review papers that focused on the blockchain-based agri-food supply chain to understand the benefits and challenges in the blockchain applications. We then analyzed 14 blockchain-based agri-food traceability applications and 10 non-blockchain-based agri-food traceability applications. The analysis resulted in categorizations of 5 target user groups, 3 main approaches for collecting data, 5 main approaches for visualizing data, and a discussion of other aspects of user interfaces. However, we found insufficient details and discussions on the user interfaces and design decisions of the applications for further usability assessment. Additionally, user involvement for evaluation is lower in blockchain-based researches than in non-blockchain-based researches. This trend could lead to usability problems of blockchain applications, causing blockchain technology to be underutilized. Finally, we discussed research gaps and future research directions related to user interface design, which should be addressed to ease future blockchain adoption.

Luisanna Cocco, Katiuscia Mannaro, Roberto Tonelli, Lorena Mariani · 8 authors

In this paper we present a blockchain based system for the supply chain management of a particular Italian bread. Goal of the system is to guarantee a transparent and auditable traceability of the Carasau bread where each actor of the supply chain can verify the quality of the products and the conformity to the normative about the hygienic-sanitary conditions along the chain. To realize this system we relied on the Blockchain and the Internet of Thing technologies in order to provide a trustless environment, in which trust is placed in cryptography, in mathematical operations and on the network, and not in public or private companies. Thanks to the use of digital technologies the system aims to reduce the data entry errors and the risk of tampering. Our system is designed so that along the supply chain, the nodes equipped with several sensors directly communicate their data to Raspberry Pi units that elaborate and transmit them to Interplanetary File System and to the Ethereum Blockchain. Furthermore, we designed ad hoc Radio Frequency Identification and Near Field communication tags to shortly supply the proposed system with information about the products and batches. The dedicated RFID tags robustness during on-bread operation was numerically tested. The system will easily allow end consumers to have a transparent view on the whole journey from raw material to purchased final product and a supervisory authority to perform online inspections on the products’ quality and on the good working practices.

Huilin Chen, Zheyi Chen, Feiting Lin, Peifen Zhuang

In agri-food supply chains (ASCs), consumers pay for agri-food products produced by farmers. During this process, consumers emphasize the importance of agri-food safety while farmers expect to increase their profits. Due to the complexity and dynamics of ASCs, the effective traceability and management for agri-food products face huge challenges. However, most of the existing solutions cannot well meet the requirements of traceability and management in ASCs. To address these challenges, we first design a blockchain-based ASC framework to provide product traceability, which guarantees decentralized security for the agri-food tracing data in ASCs. Next, a Deep Reinforcement learning based Supply Chain Management (DR-SCM) method is proposed to make effective decisions on the production and storage of agri-food products for profit optimization. The extensive simulation experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed blockchain-based framework and the DR-SCM method under different ASC environments. The results show that reliable product traceability is well guaranteed by using the proposed blockchain-based ASC framework. Moreover, the DR-SCM can achieve higher product profits than heuristic and Q-learning methods.

Xinting Yang, Mengqi Li, Huajing Yu, Mingting Wang · 6 authors

Traditional traceability system has problems of centralized management, opaque information, untrustworthy data, and easy generation of information islands. To solve the above problems, this paper designs a traceability system based on blockchain technology for storage and query of product information in supply chain of agricultural products. Leveraging the characteristics of decentralization, tamper-proof and traceability of blockchain technology, the transparency and credibility of traceability information increased. A dual storage structure of “database + blockchain” on-chain and off-chain traceability information is constructed to reduce load pressure of the chain and realize efficient information query. Blockchain technology combined with cryptography is proposed to realize the safe sharing of private information in the blockchain network. In addition, we design a reputation-based smart contract to incentivize network nodes to upload traceability data. Furthermore, we provide performance analysis and practical application, the results show that our system improves the query efficiency and the security of private information, guarantees the authenticity and reliability of data in supply chain management, and meets actual application requirements.

Lu Wang, Longqin Xu, Zhiying Zheng, Shuangyin Liu · 8 authors

The complexity of a supply chain makes product safety or quality issues extremely difficult to track, especially for the basic agricultural food supply chains of people's daily diets. The existing agricultural food supply chains present several major problems, such as numerous participants, inconvenient communication caused by long supply chain cycles, data distrust between participants and the centralized system. The emergence of blockchain technology effectively solves the pain-point problem existing in the traceability system of agricultural food supply chains. This paper proposes a framework based on the consortium and smart contracts to track and trace the workflow of agricultural food supply chains, implement traceability and shareability of supply chains, and break down the information islands between enterprises as much as possible to eliminate the need for the central institutions and agencies and improve the integrity of the transaction records, reliability and security. At the same time, farmers record details of the environment and crop growth data in the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and store file IPFS hashes in smart contracts, which not only increases data security but also alleviates the blockchain storage explosion problem. This framework has been applied in Shanwei Lvfengyuan Modern Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. Although there are still many defects, the framework has successfully realized functions such as disintermediation and tracing of agricultural product information through QR codes. Thus, the framework proposed in this paper is of great significance and reference value for enterprises to ensure product quality and safety traceability.