Blockchain Technology-Based Framework for Food Supply Chain Traceability

Abstract

Blockchain technology is a digital ledger of transactions that are stored in a successive manner and open for public consumption. Apart from its application and use in crypto currencies such as bitcoin, it has demonstrated high level usefulness in other areas such as tracking the origin of files, digital properties, physical properties, voting rights and so on. With the current global challenges facing the food supply chain such as global warming, a lot of fake and unhealthy foods are being produced for human consumption, hence there is need to build confidence in food products by availing the necessary information to the consumer when the need arises. This paper seeks to create a framework that enhances the traceability of food products in the food supply chain for proper food quality authentication. The paper presents a food supply chain traceability framework using blockchain technology. Python programming language was used to simulate the blockchain framework. Information about production, processing, distribution and retailing services are digitized in the blockchain model while the QR code is employed to make the blockchain information easily available to consumers for product traceability purposes. This system performed reliably without such as insufficient memory allocation for storing information in QRcode nor inability to access stored records due to signal issues. It further shows that this framework can be used as an advisory tool for the provision of sponsorship to regions of interest for food production.