The BlockSupply project is a pioneering initiative that seeks to redefine supply chain management by leveraging blockchain technology to ensure real-time monitoring of product movements and enhance transparency, security, and traceability. The software offers key functionalities such as creating a private blockchain network, integrating tracking sensors for real-time data collection, secure recording of product data, user authentication, authorization management, and alerts for abnormal events. It is developed using technologies like Web3.js, React.js, Solidity, Ganache, and GitHub, which are integrated into the project’s architecture to create an efficient and secure blockchain-based supply chain solution. Furthermore, the project’s impact is expected to be significant, contributing to scientific advancements in secure and efficient supply chain operations and reshaping the landscape of logistics traceability. As the software gains traction in real-world scenarios, its transformative influence on data reliability, security, and operational efficiency in supply chain research is poised to be showcased in publications. • Blockchain boosts real-time supply monitoring and security. • Utilizes Web3.js, React.js, and Solidity for robust system. • Mitigates fraud and errors in supply chain management. • Streamlines inventory via advanced tracking and sensors. • Open-source, enhances operational efficiency significantly.
Aslan Alwi, Nugroho Adi Sasongko, Suprapto Suprapto, Yaya Suryana · 5 authors
The utilization of blockchain technology in the fishing industry has been extensively studied and implemented to address issues such as illegal fishing and carbon emissions control. However, integrating blockchain with the vast amounts of data in the fishing supply chain poses significant challenges. Challenges include managing extensive data such as photos or videos for product traceability throughout their lifecycle, compounded by the growing complexity of cross-border trade and market expansion. Additionally, blockchain's storage capacity limitations present hurdles in fully accommodating and comprehensively storing detailed supply data from a complex and expanding supply chain. While solutions like the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) have been explored for large data storage on the blockchain, this paper proposes a directly integrated blockchain solution tailored for the challenges of fishing with big data. We introduce a novel big data design that preserves blockchain's anonymity and immutability features, addressing storage limitations while maintaining the architecture's purpose. Furthermore, our proposal integrates product supply chain traceability with carbon footprint tracking, enabling comprehensive assessment based on quality, sustainability, and carbon footprint criteria. Despite the proposed solution needing to be tested in real-life situations, we conducted rigorous testing through simulation, white-box evaluation, and complexity analysis. The results demonstrate the potential of our solution to address challenges faced in fisheries supply chains, providing valuable insights for future practical implementation and validation efforts.
Wahidur Rahman, Muhammad Minoar Hossain, Md. Mahedi Hasan, Md. Sadiq Iqbal · 7 authors
Paddy cultivation is a significant global economic sector, with rice production playing a crucial role in influencing worldwide economies. However, insects in paddy farms predominantly impact the growth rate and ecological equilibrium of the agricultural field. Hence, the precise and timely identification of insects in agricultural settings presents a potential strategy for addressing this issue. This study aims to implement an automated system for paddy farming by employing a realtime framework that incorporates the Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain technology, and Deep Learning (DL) algorithms. The primary emphasis of the DL-based system is on the timely identification of pests. In contrast, integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain technologies facilitates establishing a fully automated system with security within the agricultural domain. The DL-based system includes a secondary dataset of paddy insects, and then preprocessing, feature extraction, and identification have been performed. Besides, an IoT-based system is embodied with a camera module and microprocessor, accompanied by some apparatus required to automate the whole system. In addition, the research also includes the Blockchain to secure each individual data transmission among the several IoT components and the cloud server. While examining the proposed solution, various experimental data have been systematically documented and analyzed. The proposed framework attained a peak accuracy of 98.91% using the VGG19 model and ensemble classifiers to detect the pest with a specificity of 99.14% and a precision of 98.21%. The study additionally quantifies the mean duration of the cloud response when integrated with IoT, yielding an average time of 1.71 seconds after pest identification. Nevertheless, the system has exhibited a high level of efficacy in the context of real-time monitoring and automation of paddy farms.
There are more and more issues related to food safety and pollution risk, and efficient traceability solutions are urgently required. Through traceability, the source of food can be traced efficiently and held accountable to improve food safety. To this end, this article designs an agricultural supply chain traceability mechanism based on Ethereum smart contracts. This mechanism optimizes the blockchain agricultural product traceability process by introducing NFT technology. The experimental results show that the supply chain framework proposed in this article is better than the existing blockchain traceability base standard technology in terms of cost efficiency and traceability efficiency.
Ricardo Morais, António Miguel Rosado da Cruz, Estrela Ferreira Cruz
Fresh food is difficult to preserve, especially because its characteristics can change, and its nutritional value may decrease. Therefore, from the consumer’s point of view, it would be very useful if, when buying fresh fruit or vegetables, they could know where it has been cultivated, when it was harvested and everything that has happened from its harvest until it reached the supermarket shelf. In other words, the consumer would like to have information about the traceability of the fruit or vegetables they intend to buy. This article presents a blockchain-based platform that allows institutions, consumers and business partners to track, back and forward, quality and sustainability information about all types of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Food industry professionals and consumers alike take food safety seriously. The complexity of the food supply chain makes it difficult to trace the provenance and quality of food products, which can result in contamination, fraud, and ineffective recalls. To improve transparency, traceability, and accountability throughout the food supply chain, blockchain technology has emerged as a possible alternative. It examines how blockchain technology and food safety interact, highlighting how it could fundamentally alter how we monitor, confirm, and protect the quality of our food. This work proposes a Blockchain based food traceability system provides a safe and tamper-proof platform for tracking each step of the food journey by establishing an immutable and decentralized ledger of transactions. It has been implemented with the essential characteristics of blockchain, such as data immutability, transparency, smart contracts, and decentralized consensus and could successfully trace the food chain steps.
The Fish Supply Chain (FSC) industry faces a significant challenge in efficiently and affordably preserving fish quality and detecting adulteration throughout the chain. Quality, Adulteration and Traceability (QAT) is a multi-mode spectroscopy and AI-based handheld device that is developed by our team to identify fish species and assess fish freshness that can be integrated into the FSC ecosystem. We conducted a survey interviewing professionals across the FSC, including harvesters, processors, distributors, and retailers and queried them about how they evaluate fish freshness and the major issues faced in freshness inspection and fraud detection. We learned that traditional sensory evaluation and electronic noses are the most common methods used for fish quality and freshness assessment. QAT technology will play a role as a substitute for current methods and will offer rapid results for fish species identification, quality assessment, and nutritional content analysis. Blockchain (BC), as a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), can be integrated with FSC to securely monitor and record fish quality and freshness values each step of the FSC. This helps in maintaining product integrity and provides stakeholders with access to the entire journey of the fish product. We extend our experiments to study the degradation of fish freshness throughout the FSC to trigger the system once the rate of decay exceeds a certain limit. These results should be used so BC integration with smart contracts be able to compare its freshness grade to the history of recorded values. If the degradation in freshness exceeds the expected range, then the smart contract should raise an alarm to alert the system. In this way, BC-based FSC incorporating QAT technology is able to detect any degradation and flag products that may have compromised freshness or quality. This integration of technologies not only promises to revolutionize the FSC but also addresses issues like fraud and illegal fishing activities, ultimately delivering higher-quality and more transparent fish products to consumers.
Soraya González-Mendes, Sara Alonso‐Muñoz, Fernando E. García‐Muiña, Rocío González Sánchez
Purpose This paper aims to provide an overview of the application of blockchain to agri-food supply chains, including key issues and trends. It examines the state of the art and conceptual structure of the field and proposes an agenda to guide future research. Design/methodology/approach This article performs a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer software on a sample of 205 articles from the WoS database to identify research trend topics. Findings The number of publications in this area has increased since 2020, which shows a growing research interest. The research hotspots are related to the integration of blockchain technology in the agri-food supply chain for traceability, coordination between all actors involved, transparency of operations and improvement of food safety. Furthermore, this is linked to sustainability and the achievement of the sustainable development gtoals (SDGs), while addressing key challenges in the implementation of blockchain-based technologies in the agri-food supply chain. Practical implications The application of blockchain in the agri-food supply chain may consider four key aspects. Firstly, the implementation of blockchain can improve the traceability of food products. Secondly, this technology supports sustainability issues and could avoid disruptions in the agri-food supply chain. Third, blockchain improves food quality and safety control throughout the supply chain. Fourthly, the findings show that regulation is needed to improve trust between stakeholders. Originality/value The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the blockchain phenomenon in the agri-food supply chain by optimising the search criteria. Moreover, it serves to bridge to future research by identifying gaps in the field.
Abdulrahman A. Alshdadi, Souad Kamel, Eesa Alsolami, Miltiadis D. Lytras · 5 authors
Cold supply chains are becoming more and more attractive due to the high demand induced by increased consumption. To fulfill standards and customers’ requirements regarding the conditions under which cold supply chain products (mainly foods and pharmaceuticals) are stored (in warehouses) and transported to the end-users, tracking those conditions is a necessity. To ensure a high level of visibility, fostering emerging technologies can improve the quality of service in supply chains in terms of delivery time, cost, and quality. In this paper, a global framework for monitoring the conditions of storage and transportation of cold products across the whole supply chain is designed and implemented practically. The proposed solution is built around low-cost and low-energy consumption devices such as sensors and microcontrollers which are connected to cloud storage to allow a high level of visibility in the supply chain allowing all parties, including the end-consumers, to follow the products during their transfer, providing a conceptual framework that monitors the performance on a real-time basis and enhances decision making. A prototype using an embedded temperature/humidity sensor, a tiny microcontroller equipped with a Wi-Fi connectivity device, and a mobile 4G/5G network is designed and implemented. The proposed system is connected to a cloud-storage platform continuously accessible by the main parties of the cold supply chain including the provider, the transporter, and the end-consumer. The proposed framework may be handled as a smart contract during which any party can assume its responsibility for the assurance of the best conditions of the supply chain operation. A small-scale real-life scenario conducted in Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia is introduced to show the feasibility of the proposed framework.
The study presents a comprehensive examination of the recent advancements in the field of wine production using the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Blockchain Technology (BCT). The paper aims to provide insights into the implementation of these technologies in the wine supply chain and to identify the potential benefits associated with their use. The study highlights the various applications of IoT, AI, and BCT in wine production, including vineyard management, wine quality control, and supply chain management. It also discusses the potential benefits of these technologies, such as improved efficiency, increased transparency, and reduced costs. The study concludes by presenting the framework proposed by the authors in order to overcome the challenges associated with the implementation of these technologies in the wine supply chain and suggests areas for future research. The proposed framework meets the challenges of lack of transparency, lack of ecosystem management in the wine industry and irresponsible spending associated with the lack of monitoring and prediction tools. Overall, the study provides valuable insights into the potential of IoT, AI, and BCT in optimizing the wine supply chain and offers a comprehensive review of the existing literature on the study subject.
Wang Zeng, Yuzhi Wang, Kaibo Liang, J. Li · 5 authors
Abstract Advancing cold‐chain medicine logistics and emergency supplies management necessitates a robust blockchain‐based traceability system. This specialized information system is essential for enhancing quality control and operational efficiency. Despite challenges like insufficient supplies, ineffective distribution, and delays, blockchain's transparency and traceability offer significant potential to revolutionize national emergency management. This paper presents a blockchain‐based traceability system tailored for cold‐chain medicine logistics. This system achieves traceability and automatic medicine quality assessment by integrating blockchain principles and leveraging hazard analysis theory combined with IoT technology. This system also enhances data reliability with a multi‐sensor data fusion algorithm, improving temperature accuracy beyond conventional methods. Additionally, the feasibility and necessity of integrating blockchain into cold‐chain pharmaceutical traceability processes is thoroughly examined. The proposed system fulfills traceability needs for emergency cold‐chain medicine while addressing industry challenges.
Anum Nawaz, Liguan Wang, Muhammad Irfan, Tomi Westerlund
Drug supply chains have been facing severe issues as counterfeit product cases are increasing exponentially. A supply chain management system that ensures transparency, reliability, and provenance of drugs would increase the trustworthiness of the whole industry. One solution to all three needs is utilizing blockchain-based distributed ledger technologies (DLTs). Even though DLTs are emerging as an ideal infrastructure for multi-stakeholder supply chain applications, they still need to be more mature to address the specific challenges specific to each use case. In this article, we propose a distributed blockchain-based framework, PHTrack, leveraging hyperledger sawtooth as a drug supply chain traceability system. Hyperledger sawtooth addresses scalability issues by offering a robust foundation to support large-scale drug supply chain operations in a modular way for it’s each participating stakeholder. Furthermore, it simplifies the integration process with existing systems, even those employing different technologies, thereby facilitating a smoother transition to DLTs. The design of PHTrack is oriented towards minimizing resource consumption throughout the process, particularly within hyperledger sawtooth nodes. Additionally, it incorporates quantum secure off-chain communication for peer-to-peer (P2P) communication. A set of experiments was conducted to validate the proposed framework. Experiments have shown that PHTrack provides reliable and comprehensive drug provenance as well as real-time drug supply chain tracking.
Purpose: This paper aims to develop a coffee supply chain traceability system based on Blockchain (BC) and Machine Learning (ML) with the aim of ensuring the quality of coffee beans production. BC functions to ensure supply chain performance, while the ML model ensures product quality.Design/methodology/approach: Smart Contracts will be built on the Ethereum Virtual Machine BC network based on Ethereum. The ML model to identify good and bad green coffee beans will be built using different YOLO algorithms, which will go through training and validation stages, namely using the k-fold cross validation method. The ML model algorithm is based on Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) using YOLOv5m, YOLOv6m and YOLOv7. The best model will be chosen based on the results of cross-validation with test data in the form of coffee image data that the model has never seen (unseen data). The whole process of building the ML model is done on the Google Collab Pro+ Virtual Machine.Findings: YOLOv5m outperformed the other models in both non-augmented and augmented training datasets, highlighting the proficiency of YOLOv5m in managing compact datasets and its resilience in the face of data augmentation, positioning it as a prime selection for quality discernment tasks within the realm of green coffee beans. The smart contracts offer an all-encompassing approach for user management, monitoring product status, and presenting traceability data within the framework of coffee plantation administration.Originality/value: This research contributes to the development of blockchain network as a solution to implement traceability systems along coffee supply chains in Indonesia. Moreover, it shows that while blockchain can ensure the process of production along the coffee supply to follow certain guidelines, machine learning can verify whether the product that was produced by utilizing BC is of high quality/acceptable.
The issue of food safety has become a crucial public health issue worldwide. Blockchain technology allows consumers to track the flow of food and effectively record the sources and processes of their products, and reduces the elimination of associated food fraud phenomena, such as counterfeiting and dilution. Using signaling theory, structural equation model method and an online sample of 415 Chinese participants, this study investigates the impact of how blockchain-based food traceability system influences consumers' online purchase intentions of organic agricultural products. The results illustrate that: (1) blockchain-based food traceability system can increase consumers' willingness to buy organic agricultural products. (2) Blockchain-based food traceability system can increase consumers' product quality perceptions, product trust and environmental information transparency perceptions. (3) Product quality perceptions, product trust and environmental information transparency perceptions can also promote consumers' purchase intentions. (4) Product quality perceptions, product trust and environmental information transparency perceptions all have significant mediation effects in the in the relationship between blockchain-based food traceability system and consumer purchase intention. The findings of the research are valuable information for business managers and retailers who want to increase sales of their products, as well as helping relevant policy makers to achieve the ultimate goal of green and sustainable development in the food industry.
Abstract Trust, safety, and quality are among the most important factors in the agri-food supply chains. Traceability is a powerful tool to ensure them, but implementing a transparent and effective system is a complex operation. As a result, innovative systems, like blockchain, could be introduced. Although research on its impacts in the agri-food is recent, the literature appears fragmented. The objective is to investigate the studied aspects of the blockchain adoption in agri-food, with the purpose of retrieving meaningful considerations about the current state of the art about strategic high-value supply chains, such as wine and olive oil, particularly subjected to fraudulent behaviors. A productivity measurement was applied to retrieve the evolution of the number of documents through the years, the most productive countries, the sources, the research areas, and the most significant papers in terms of number of citations received. To understand the research trends, a co-occurrence analysis was employed. Results show that most of the existing studies focus on the role of blockchain in the resolution of some critical issues as food safety and frauds. While wine is currently an emerging sector in which this approach can be implemented, olive oil still needs more attention. In both cases, blockchain could potentially help to support the profitability and sustainability of the production. The research underlines the importance of focusing on the environmental and social dimension of the blockchain phenomenon and the use of technology to improve the efficiency of agri-food chains and reduce waste and resource use.
This research conducted two studies on blockchain technology (BCT) in the restaurant supply chain. The first study explored how BCT influences customer dining experiences using a service design workshop. The second study validated the findings using PLS-SEM. Results indicate that customer innovativeness and cryptocurrency ownership positively impact transparency perceptions. Increased transparency improves food safety, quality, and naturalness perceptions, enhancing customer satisfaction and eWOM behavior. Food safety concerns and health consciousness strengthen the relationship between transparency and perceived food safety and quality. This research expands information processing theory and offers insights for restaurant owners, policymakers, and technology developers regarding BCT adoption.
This research work presents a decentralized parallel blockchain-based agricultural product traceability system, which aims to enhance information security and data model efficiency, and achieve real-time tracking of agricultural products. Through an in-depth analysis of decentralized blockchain applications, the system adopts distributed ledger processing for low-cost transactions. The Digital Promise technology ensures the credibility of the data transmission and privacy protection. The proposed decentralized parallel blockchain structure shows significant traceability results, ensuring transparent traceability of agricultural products. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the system, improving food safety and quality management. The decentralized nature reduces the risk of data tampering, thereby enhancing public trust. Experimental results show short query response times, efficient data transfers, and zero failures, highlighting the system's excellent performance in handling traceability queries. These results underscore the remarkable advantages of blockchain technology in increasing the efficiency and reliability of traceability systems.
Marco Fiore, Michel Frem, Marina Mongiello, Francesco Bozzo · 7 authors
Abstract Blockchain‐based traceability systems play a crucial role in providing comprehensive product information to consumers and its strategic value for businesses. We explore how traceability builds customer trust by disclosing manufacturing details, product origin, and supply‐chain information. The study gives an overview of the TRACECOOP project and its implementation based on the architecture developed in collaboration with project partners. Further, this study examines Apulia (southern Italy) consumers' willingness‐to‐pay (WTP as price premium) towards this innovative technology regarding additional labeling information. The results reveal an overall positive average WTPs of EUR 0.98 towards the presence of Blockchain Technology/QR code on the labels of five agri‐food products.
feta cheese is a Greek protected designation of origin (PDO) product that is produced in three main phases: milk collection, cheese preparation and maturation, and product packaging. Each phase must be aligned with quantitative rules, stemming from the legislation framework and best practices. The production complexity, the increased production cost, centralised and monolithic traceability systems, and the lack of a systematic monitoring framework have made dairy products a commodity with increased frequency of food fraud. Given the context of the dairy section in Greece, this study aims to examine (a) whether it is possible to model the end-to-end process of PDO feta cheese considering production rules to develop a trustworthy blockchain-based traceability system (b) how to associate the (‘easy-to-retrieve’, operational) traceability data with the (difficult-to-assess) product characteristics meaningful to the consumer, (c) how to design a technical solution ensuring that information is accessible by the stakeholders and the consumer, while minimising blockchain-related delay, and (d) how to design a graphical user interface and offer tools to consumers so that traceability information is communicated effectively and they can verify it through access to the blockchain. In terms of methods, we analyse and model the process steps, identify measurable, operational parameters and translate the legislative framework into rules. These rules are designed and codified as blockchain smart contracts that ensure the food authenticity and compliance with legislation. The blockchain infrastructure consists of the private Quorum blockchain that is anchored to the public infrastructure of Ethereum. Mechanisms to address scalability in terms of dynamic data volumes, effective data coding, and data verification at the edge as well as relevant limitations are discussed. Consumers are informed about traceability information by using QR codes on food packaging and can verify the data using the blockchain tools and services.
The wheat crop that fulfills 35% of human food demand is facing several problems due to a lack of transparency, security, reliability, and traceability in the existing agriculture supply chain. Many systems have been developed for the agriculture supply chain to overcome such issues, however, monopolistic centralized control is the biggest hurdle to realizing the use of such systems. It has eventually gained consumers' trust in branded products and rejected other products due to the lack of traceable supply chain information. This study proposes a blockchain-based framework for supply chain traceability which provides trustable, transparent, secure, and reliable services for the wheat crop. A crypto token called wheat coin (WC) has been introduced to keep track of transactions among the stakeholders of the wheat supply chain. Moreover, an initial coin offering (ICO) of WC, crypto wallets, and an economic model are proposed. Furthermore, a smart contract-based transaction system has been devised for the transparency of wheat crop transactions and conversion of WC to fiat and vice versa. We have developed the interplanetary file system (IPFS) to improve data availability, security, and transparency which stores encrypted private data of farmers, businesses, and merchants. Lastly, the results of the experiments show that the proposed framework shows better performance as compared to previous crop supply chain solutions in terms of latency to add-blocks, per-minute transactions, average gas charge for the transaction, and transaction verification time. Performance analysis with Bitcoin and Ethereum shows the superior performance of the proposed system.