This work presents a Self Sovereign Identity based system proposal to show how Blockchain, Building Information Modeling, Internet of Thing devices, and Self Sovereign Identity concepts can support the process of building digitalization, guaranteeing the compliance standards and technical regulations. The proposal ensures eligibility, transparency and traceability of all information produced by stakeholders, or generated by IoT devices appropriately placed, during the entire life cycle of a building artifact. By exploiting the concepts of the Self Sovereign Identity, our proposal allows the identification of all involved stakeholders, the storage off-chain of all information, and that on-chain of the sole data necessary for the information notarization and certification, adopting multi-signature approval mechanisms where appropriate. In addition it allows the eligibility verification of the certificated information, providing also useful information for facility management. It is proposed as an innovative system and companies that adopt the Open Innovation paradigm might want to pursue it. The model proposal is designed exploiting the Veramo platform, hence the Ethereum Blockchain, and all the recommendations about Self Sovereign Identity systems given by the European Blockchain Partnership, and by the World Wide Web Consortium.
Most traditional agricultural traceability systems are centralized, which could result in the low reliability of traceability results, enterprise privacy data leakage vulnerabilities, and the generation of information islands. To solve the above problems, we propose a trusted agricultural product traceability system based on the Ethereum blockchain in this paper. We designed a dual storage model of "Blockchain+IPFS (InterPlanetary File System)" to reduce the storage pressure of the blockchain and realize efficient information queries. Additionally, we propose a data privacy protection solution based on some cryptographic primitives and the Merkle Tree that can avoid enterprise privacy and sensitive data leakage. Furthermore, we implemented the proposed system using the Ethereum blockchain platform and provided the cost, performance, and security analysis, as well as compared it with the existing solutions. The results showed that the proposed system is both efficient and feasible and can meet the practical application requirements.
Miguel Pincheira, Massimo Vecchio, Raffaele Giaffreda
An increasing amount of research focuses on integrating the Internet of Things and blockchain technology to address the requirements of traceability applications for Industry 4.0. However, there has been little quantitative analysis of several aspects of these new blockchain-based traceability systems. For instance, very few works have studied blockchain’s impact on the resources of constrained IoT sensors. Similarly, the infrastructure costs of these blockchain-based systems are not widely understood. This paper characterizes the resources of low-cost IoT sensors and provides a monetary cost model for blockchain infrastructure to support blockchain-based traceability systems. First, we describe and implement a farm-to-fork case study using public and private blockchain networks. Then, we analyze the impact of blockchain in six different resource-limited IoT devices in terms of disk and memory footprint, processing time, and energy consumption. Next, we present an infrastructure cost model and use it to identify the costs for the public and private networks. Finally, we evaluate the traceability of a product in different scenarios. Our results showed that low-cost sensors could directly interact with both types of blockchains with minimal energy overhead. Furthermore, our cost model showed that setting a private blockchain infrastructure costs approximately the same as that managing 50 products on a public blockchain network.
Food safety is a fundamental right in modern societies. One of the most pressing problems nowadays is the provenance of food and food-related products that citizens consume, mainly due to several food scares and the globalization of food markets, which has resulted in food supply chains that extend beyond nations or even continent boundaries. Food supply networks are characterized by high complexity and a lack of openness. There is a critical requirement for applying novel techniques to verify and authenticate the origin, quality parameters, and transfer/storage details associated with food. This study portrays an end-to-end approach to enhance the security of the food supply chain and thus increase the trustfulness of the food industry. The system aims at increasing the transparency of food supply chain monitoring systems through securing all components that those consist of. A universal information monitoring scheme based on blockchain technology ensures the integrity of collected data, a self-sovereign identity approach for all supply chain actors ensures the minimization of single points of failure, and finally, a security mechanism, that is based on the use of TinyML’s nascent technology, is embedded in monitoring devices to mitigate a significant portion of malicious behavior from actors in the supply chain.
Food safety is a public health issue of paramount importance. In this regard, blockchain has emerged as a promising technology that allows users to effectively and efficiently record the origin and flow of products and eliminate or reduce harmful food fraud. Consumers can benefit from this development by receiving up-to-date and verifiable information about the origins and delivery routes of their purchases. Drawing on signaling theory and the results of two experimental studies with 151 and 152 participants, respectively, we investigate how the use of blockchain to trace food products impacts consumers’ perception of product quality as a mediating variable and subsequently their purchase intention. Our framework further considers brand familiarity as a moderating variable. The findings from the two experiments show that blockchain labels as a signaling mechanism in food supply chains help to strengthen consumers’ perceived quality of food products, which, in turn, increases their purchase intention. This effect is more pronounced for less familiar brands, which is valuable information for managers who want to build a brand’s reputation. From an academic perspective, we highlight the applicability of signaling theory to identify blockchain-based traceability systems as important drivers of perceived product quality and consequently purchase intention.
By the development of living standards people are more involved in food safety and quality of product. Due to this scenario the traceability of food products becomes the need of every consumer. By the various characteristics of Blockchain such as transparency, decentralization and immutability, it is possible to address the problems existing in the supply chain. In this paper, a survey has been done on the traceability system in food supply chain management using Blockchain. Various methods used for traceability purposes in food supply chain management, issues faced by centralized systems in the fields of food safety, traceability, and security have been discussed in the current work. Moreover, the survey focussed on the platforms namely smart contract and Ethereum which helps in implementing the food supply chain management using blockchain.
Rice is a major food crop around the world, and its various quality and safety problems are closely related to human health. As an important area of food safety research, the rice supply chain has attracted increasing attention. Based on blockchain technology, this study investigated problems of data privacy and circulation efficiency caused by complex rice supply networks, long circulation cycles, and various risk factors in each link. First, we deconstructed the quality and safety of each link of the rice supply chain at the information level and established a key information classification table for each link. On that basis, we built a rice supply chain information supervision model based on blockchain. Various encryption algorithms are used to secure the sensitive data of enterprises in the supply chain to meet regulators' needs for efficient supervision. Moreover, we propose a practical Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus algorithm that scores the credit of enterprise nodes, optimizes the selection strategy of master nodes, and ensures high efficiency and low cost. Then, we built a prototype system based on the open-source framework of hyperledger fabric, analyzed the model's viability, and implemented the system using cases. The results indicated that the proposed system can optimize the information supervision process of rice supply chain regulators and provide a feasible solution for the quality and safety supervision of grain and oil.
A large number of refrigerated container are moved everyday domestically and internationally.The information of refrigerated container is usually stored centrally. It is prone to being tampered by the responsible party, making it difficult to call to account. Due to its characteristics of decentralization, transparency and immutability, blockchain technology can be used to alleviate this problem. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based refrigerated container traceability system that can trace the information of refrigerated container. We also design a smart contract to realize the information upload and query of refrigerated containers. The experimental results show that the blockchain traceability system and smart contract proposed can effectively monitor and trace refrigerated containers. It guarantees the integrity and reliability of traceability information.
Shobha Rathore, Nainsi Gupta, Ajaypal Singh Rathore, Gunjan Soni
Abstract Food supply chain transparency and traceability is very important to address the issue regarding quality and safety. In traditional tracing system, with increasing the complexity of supply chain making product recalls difficult to manage and putting human lives at risk. To eliminate such types of risks, blockchain technology gives more efficient and reliable system for food tracing. Recently, there is an exponential rise in adoption of blockchain technology and most disparate IOT (Internet of things) devices in agriculture and food supply chain. It is an evolving technology that comforts the food supply chains by providing transparent data records and manage the food movement in the chain using distributed (P2P) network. That is more secured and there's no need for third party verifications. Our focus in this research will be on the Indian wheat supply chain and issues related to food losses caused by a lack of transparency and traceability. In order to improve the transparency of the wheat supply chain, we created an end-to-end smart wheat supply chain solution that combines blockchain technology, NFC tags, IoTs, and smart contracts. The solution is supported by entity relationship diagrams, information and money flow sequence diagrams, and a blockchain network diagram. We also used a security algorithm and the “NFC-Tag writer by NXP” program to validate and assess our system. This work could serve as a springboard for more in-depth research in this area. Depending on the existing situation in the industry, this research can also advise corporate procedures to deploy blockchain-based applications in the supply chain and logistics industry.
Giuseppe Varavallo, Giuseppe Caragnano, Fabrizio Bertone, Luca Vernetti-Prot · 5 authors
Recent progress in IoT and software development has simplified data acquisition and immutability of information in the agri-food supply chain. In the last few years, several frameworks and applications were proposed to ensure traceability in the agri-food-sector using distributed ledger technologies (DLT) such as Blockchain technologies. Still, no other study has presented a Blockchain-based traceability platform with a lower impact on the environment and lower cost for each transaction sent by the supply chain. This article presents a traceability platform based on Green Blockchain with low energy consumption and costs savings applied to the Fontina PDO cheese supply chain, part of the project “Typicalp”, funded by the European Union (EU). The proposed traceability system is based on Algorand Blockchain, which uses the Pure Proof-of-Stake mechanism of consensus that requires minimal computational power, is highly scalable and environmentally sustainable. In addition to the environmental and financial benefits, the developed traceability platform has made it possible to digitize the entire production chain, making the data immutable and available in real-time for Fontina consortium operators and final consumers.
Tracing food products along the entire supply chain is important for achieving better management of food products. Traditionally, centralized traceability systems have been developed for such purposes. One major drawback of this approach is that different users of the supply chain have their own systems with their own complexities and distinct features; thus, the interaction among them creates challenges when implementing a single centralized system. Therefore, a decentralized traceability system is favorable for tracing food products along the supply chain. In this study, we develop a supply chain traceability system framework based on blockchain and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. The system consists of a decentralized blockchain-enabled data storage platform for data management and an RFID system at the packaging level for data collection and storage. We applied a consortium blockchain to the application. Fabric 2.0 in Hyperledger was chosen as the development platform. The proposed blockchain-enabled platform can provide decentralized data management and its underlying algorithm can guarantee data security. The system includes a creatively designed blockchain-enabled data structure in the RFID tag. When people scan the tag, the relevant information is written in the tag as a block linked to the previous blocks; simultaneously, the information is transmitted to the blockchain platform and recorded on the platform. No battery is required and the system works when there is an RFID reader nearby. The usage conditions included shipment, stocking, and storage. The RFID tag can be directly attached to paper packaging. This approach embeds the blockchain technique into the RFID tag and develops a corresponding system. The new traceability system has the potential to simplify the tracking of products and can be scaled for industrial use.
Ibtisam Ehsan, Muhammad Irfan Khalid, Laura Ricci, Jawaid Iqbal · 7 authors
In agriculture supply chain management, traceability is a crucial aspect to ensure food safety for increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction. Lack of quality assurance in centralized data storage makes us move towards a new approach based on a decentralized system in which transparency and quality assurance is guaranteed throughout the supply chain from producer to consumer. The current supply chain model has some disadvantages like a communication gap between the entities of the supply chain and no information about the travel history and origin of the product. The use of technology improves the communication and relation between various farmers and stakeholders. Blockchain technology acquires transparency and traceability in the supply chain, provides transaction records traceability, and enhances security for the whole supply chain. In this paper, we present a blockchain-based, fully decentralized traceability model that ensures the integrity and transparency of the system. This new model eliminated most of the disadvantages of the traditional supply chain. For the coordination of all transactions in the supply chain, we proposed a decentralized supply chain model along with a smart contract.
A framework combining the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain can help achieve system automation and credibility, and the corresponding technologies have been applied in many industries, especially in the area of agricultural product traceability. In particular, IoT devices (radio frequency identification (RFID), geographic information system (GIS), global positioning system (GPS), etc.) can automate the collection of information pertaining to the key aspects of traceability. The data are collected and input to the blockchain system for processing, storage, and query. A distributed, decentralized, and nontamperable blockchain can ensure the security of the data entering the system. However, IoT devices may generate abnormal data in the process of data collection. In this context, it is necessary to ensure the accuracy of the source data of the traceability system. Considering the whole-process traceability chain of agricultural products, this paper analyzes the whole-process information of a tea supply chain from planting to sales, constructs the system architecture and each function, and designs and implements a machine learning- (ML-) blockchain-IoT-based tea credible traceability system (MBITTS). Based on IoT technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) sensors, this article proposes a new method that combines blockchain and ML to enhance the accuracy of blockchain source data. In addition, system data storage and indexing methods and scanning and recovery mechanisms are proposed. Compared with the existing agricultural product (tea) traceability system based on blockchain, the introduction of the ML data verification mechanism can ensure the accuracy (up to 99%) of information on the chain. The proposed solution provides a basis to ensure the safety, reliability, and efficiency of agricultural traceability systems.
Thomas K. Dasaklis, Theodore G. Voutsinas, Giannis Τ. Tsoulfas, Fran Casino
In recent years, traceability systems have been developed as practical tools for improving supply chain (SC) transparency and visibility, especially in health and safety-sensitive sectors like food and pharmaceuticals. Blockchain-related SC traceability research has received significant attention during the last several years, and arguably blockchain is currently the most promising technology for providing traceability-related services in SC networks. This paper provides a systematic literature review of the various technical implementation aspects of blockchain-enabled SC traceability systems. We apply different drivers for classifying the selected literature, such as (a) the various domains of the available blockchain-enabled SC traceability systems and relevant methodologies applied; (b) the implementation maturity of these traceability systems along with technical implementation details; and (c) the sustainability perspective (economic, environmental, social) prevalent to these implementations. We provide key takeaways regarding the open issues and challenges of current blockchain traceability implementations and fruitful future research areas. Despite the significant volume and plethora of blockchain-enabled SC traceability systems, academia has so far focused on unstructured experimentation of blockchain-associated SC traceability solutions, and there is a clear need for developing and testing real-life traceability solutions, especially taking into account feasibility and cost-related SC aspects.
Traditional cold chain logistics has problems such as centralized data storage, low data reliability, easy data tampering, and difficulty in locating responsible persons, which leads to the inability to guarantee consumer rights. To solve these problems, a cold chain logistics traceability system is proposed for fresh agricultural products based on blockchain. Both alliance chain and private chain are used in the paper in order to ensure that the product traceability system not only has certain openness but also must contain enough privacy and security. Alliance chain is mainly used to query and share product traceability information. The private chain will be used to collect and store the product traceability information of each enterprise and then connected to the alliance chain via hash pointers. The proposed system is beneficial for reducing the burden of network transmission of alliance chain and improving the efficiency of consumer product data query. At the same time, the private chain ensures the security and privacy of enterprise product data, which not only has high data storage efficiency but also can meet the requirements of all participants for the traceability system. In the experimental part, the feasibility of this system is verified through simulation experiments, which provides a reference for the combination of blockchain technology and cold chain logistics traceability system.
Today, agriculture remains the most important economic activity in the world. Food care is a major concern for the whole society. For agriculture-based supply chain management, traceability is considered as the major requirement. Traceability helps in providing quality assurance and transparency to the end user. The antiquated traceability system has the complications of centralized systems, non-transparency of information, unpredictable data, and the very easy formation of false data. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that one out of ten people is affected by having tainted food. Globalization involving different food production processes and automation pushes the food supply chain into a complicated web. Numerous advancements have been investigated lately to determine food vulnerability and carry productivity to food related issues. One of the expected advances is block chain, which is as of now being effectively executed in monetary areas, for example, bit coin. Block chain can also be used in the food supply chain industries to improve traceability and help in the danger decrease of fakes and different types of unlawful occupation. This paper presents a systematic survey on agrifood supply chain traceability issues using various block chain platforms such as Ethereum and Hyperledger, as well as IOT techniques such as barcodes, RFID, NFC, and QR codes. The performance of several consensus algorithms is also investigated.
Bello Musa Yakubu, Rabia Latif, Aisha Yakubu, Majid Iqbal Khan · 5 authors
The increasing number of rice product safety issues and the potential for contamination have established an enormous need for an effective strategy for the traceability of the rice supply chain. Tracing the origins of a rice product from raw materials to end customers is very complex and costly. Existing food supply chain methods (for example, rice) do not provide a scalable and cost-effective means of agricultural food supply. Besides, consumers lack the capability and resources required to check or report on the quality of agricultural goods in terms of defects or contamination. Consequently, customers are forced to decide whether to utilize or discard the goods. However, blockchain is an innovative framework capable of offering a transformative solution for the traceability of agricultural products and food supply chains. The aim of this paper is to propose a framework capable of tracking and monitoring all interactions and transactions between all stakeholders in the rice chain ecosystem through smart contracts. The model incorporates a system for customer satisfaction feedback, which enables all stakeholders to get up-to-date information on product quality, enabling them to make more informed supply chain decisions. Each transaction is documented and stored in the public ledger of the blockchain. The proposed framework provides a safe, efficient, reliable, and effective way to monitor and track rice products safety and quality especially during product purchasing. The security and performance analysis results shows that the proposed framework outperform the benchmark techniques in terms of cost-effectiveness, security and scalability with low computational overhead.
Blockchain technology is increasingly being supported for different agricultural commodity applications, including agricultural commodity tracing and provenance establishment. But many critical issues need to be addressed before the use of blockchain technology for this purpose becomes widespread both technologically and ethically. For that, I carried out a comparison of the different blockchain frameworks -mainly permissioned Hyperledger blockchain technology and Ethereum smart in terms of their agricultural sustainability applications. I also examined the role of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in supporting blockchain-driven sustainability. I identified how a lack of earth observation (EO) data undermines commodity provenance (and related ecological sustainability) establishment. However, the biggest threats to widespread blockchain technology adoption, especially for meeting sustainability standards include scalability issues and the lack of standard data protocols and governance measures.
For traditional agricultural product traceability system, there are some problems, such as information asymmetry and serious centralized storage. To solve the problems, a set of an agricultural product traceability information analysis system based on blockchain is designed. The overall framework of the agricultural product information traceability system is built, and the traceability model and process are designed in detail from the data layer, consensus layer, and contract layer. Collaborative verification function modules are added in the data layer to ensure the authenticity of data on the blockchain. The integral penalty mechanism is introduced to improve the practical Byzantine fault tolerance algorithm (PBFT), which ensures the security of the block network and the validity of data. Smart contracts are adopted to ensure that changes in agricultural information are actually recorded on blockchain. The results show that the designed blockchain‐based agricultural product information traceability system solves the problem of difficult sharing and traceability of agricultural product information, which realizes the traceability of agricultural product production information, processing information, transportation information, and transaction query information, and has certain theoretical and practical value for the information traceability of agricultural products and other products.