Blockchainizing Food Law: Implications for Food Safety, Traceability, and Sustainability

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the fragility of the complex global food supply chains (GFSCs) which has drastically affected the essential flow of food from the farms and producers to the final consumers. The COVID-19 outbreak has served as a great lesson for the food businesses and companies to re-strategize toward the post-COVID-19 era. This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on food security and global food supply chains using the two countries (Canada and the United States) in North America as the case studies and provides appropriate strategy or framework to build smarter and resilience food supply chains for post-COVID-19 era.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is a general review of the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on food security and disruptions of the GFSCs. This paper conducted a comprehensive literature review to have a complete understanding of the study, identify the research problem and missing gaps in literature and to formulate appropriate research questions. This study uses two countries from North America (Canada and the US) as case studies by analyzing the available open data from Statistics Canada and some recent studies conducted on food insecurity in the US. Finally, based on the findings, a proposed approach or framework was presented.FindingsThe findings from this study establishes that COVID-19 pandemic has greater impacts on the food security and GFSC due to disruption of the food supply chain leading to increase food insecurity in Canada and the US. The findings clearly show how the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the GFSC in the following ways – poor economy, shortage of farm worker, limitation to food accessibility, restriction in the transportation of farm commodities, changes in demand of consumers, shutdown of food production facilities, uncertainty of food quality and safety, food trade policies restriction, delays in transportation of food products, etc. The main findings of this study show that food and beverages sector needs to re-strategize, re-shape and re-design their food supply chains with post-COVID-19 resilience approach in mind. As a result, this study presents a proposed approach or framework to build a smarter and resilience GFSCs in the post-COVID-19 era. The findings in this study highlights the way the proposed framework provide solutions to the identified problems created by the COVID-19 pandemic in affecting the GFSC.Originality/valueThe contribution of this study towards the existing body of knowledge in food security and GFSC is in the form of a proposed approach or framework for building smarter and resilience GFSC that would assist the key players in the food industry to respond better and faster to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including post-COVID-19 era.

Modern dietary habits in communities are linked and are part of the global food supply chain. To achieve sustainable food production and consumption, communicating the impact associated with food production and dietary choices at community level to consumers is important. However, previous footprint studies have primarily focussed on food consumption at the national level and neglected community–level consumption activities. This study surveyed the diets of a small island community and linked the results with multi-region land footprint analysis in Ollei Village, Republic of Palau. The analysis was used to determine the extent to which the dietary lifestyles of communities depend on external land use through the global supply chain. We showed that the global food supply chain has reached this corner of the world, and the dietary habits of the community are already heavily dependent on processed and imported foods. The community and country are highly dependent on large land use in some major producer/exporting countries through the global food supply chain. In addition, the amount of external land used for food production exceeds the biocapacity of the agricultural land in the community and country. This study bridges the gap between community–level consumption activities and national-scale footprint analysis, and quantitatively assesses the impact of consumption activities at the community level on the global environment. The results and approach of this study could contribute to the development and implementation of vertically integrated food policies between the national and community level in Palau.

Demands on safe, high-quality and healthy food are unprecedentedly increasing in both emerging economies and advanced countries. Food safety incidents and scandals, frequently breaking out around the world, are significantly reducing the confidence of consumers in food safety and quality. It is even more difficult to achieve the full transparency, visibility and traceability of dynamic cross-border and global food supply chains, which is critical to ensure food safety and quality, due to: the personalization and globalization of consumer demands; the diversities of food products, raw materials and ingredients; the loose relationships between food business partners; the technology and resource barriers in aligning business processes, coordinating and sharing information; and the changing government supervision mechanisms and standards. Social networking technologies and social software are promising enablers to facilitate end consumers, food companies and government agencies to participate in open discussion, comments and feedback on the quality and safety of cross-border foods. They are able to connect, interact, communicate and collaborate with each other in loose, open, effective and flexible ways for enhancing the transparency and visibility of cross-border and global food supply chains through collective wisdom and intelligence. In this paper a framework is proposed for developing social networks enabling food traceability systems, which not only leverages enterprise applications, public service platforms for food quality, safety and traceability operated by government or industrial associations, but utilizes such emerging technologies as Internet-of-Things, social analytic and mobile technologies to ease interactive communication and collaboration between various stakeholders of food chains. Guidelines, architectures, use scenarios, and technology alternatives for implementing the traceability systems are also discussed in this work. A prototype, titledOSCM-FD, is being implemented and pilots are being conducted to verify the validity of the proposed framework.

The food industry plays a significant role in food supply. However, it is increasingly facing a significant number of risks to tackle. This article provides insight into sources and quantification of risk, which can restrict food operations and supply chain performance. Certainly, risks imposed by today's constantly changing global environment makes it imperative for food and agribusiness firms to develop purposeful proactive and predictive risk management for their global supply chains. We proposed the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) model to analyze sources of risks attached to the focal firm's global food operations and supply chain. The identified risks were from a review of relevant literature, expert opinions from the focal firm supply chain C‐level executive, and consultants in the food industry. We grouped the identified risks into seven categories and discussed the risk mitigation strategies. We validated the proposed model using a case study involving a focal food and agribusiness firm with global presence. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Food is one of the most traded goods, and the conflict in Ukraine, one of the European breadbaskets, has triggered a significant additional disruption in the global food supply chains after the COVID-19 impact. The disruption to food output, supply chains, availability, and affordability could have a long-standing impact. As a result, the availability and supply of a wide range of food raw materials and finished food products are under threat, and global markets have seen recent increases in food prices. Furthermore, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has adversely affected food supply chains, with significant effects on production, sourcing, manufacturing, processing, logistics, and significant shifts in demand between nations reliant on imports from Ukraine. This paper aims to analyze the impacts of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on the effectiveness and responsiveness of the global food supply chains. A PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) approach, including grey literature, was deployed to investigate six key areas of the food supply chains that would be impacted most due to the ongoing war. Findings include solutions and strategies to mitigate supply chain impacts such as alternative food raw materials, suppliers and supply chain partners supported by technological innovations to ensure food safety and quality in warlike situations.

The goal of this paper is twofold: to comparatively analyze the social performance of global and local berry supply chains and to explore the ways in which the social dimension is embedded in the overall performance of food supply chains. To achieve this goal, the social performance of five global and local food supply chains in two countries are analyzed: wild blueberry supply chains in Latvia and cultivated raspberry supply chains in Serbia. The study addresses two research questions: (1) What is the social performance of the local and global supply chains? (2) How can references to context help improve understanding of the social dimension and social performance of food supply chains? To answer these questions, two interlinked thematic sets of indicators (attributes) are used—one describing labor relations and the other describing power relations. These lists are then contextualized by examining the micro-stories of the actors involved in these supply chains. An analysis of the chosen attributes reveals that global chains perform better than local chains. However, a context-sensitive analysis from the perspective of embedded markets and communities suggests that the social performance of food chains is highly context-dependent, relational, and affected by actors’ abilities to negotiate values, norms, and the rules embedded within these chains, both global and local. The results illustrate that the empowerment of the chains’ weakest actors can lead to a redefining of the meanings that performance assessments rely on.

The different pandemics that humanity had experienced, such as the Spanish Flu, Asian Flu, Hong Kong Flu, HIV/AIDS, SARS, Ebola, and Swine Flu, had a great impact on the global economy, the environment , social lifestyle, agricultural sector, manufacturing and service industries, hospitality and tourism, education sector, aviation industry etc. Currently, humanity is facing another pandemic, the infection of the new coronavirus known as COVID-19. The objective of this paper is to present a theoretical review of supply chain disruption due to COVID-19 impact, analyze and discuss the effects of this turbulence in global food supply chain management. For the analysis, various contents from published articles, blogs, reports, newspaper publications have been collected. There was sufficient evidence to affirm that the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 has an important effect on global supply chain management process. The purpose of this paper was to highlight the reasons of disruption in global supply chain management especially in food supply chain management. This paper also has depicted the long term impacts of COVID-19 in food supply chain management. By analyzing various documents, few policies and steps were suggested to apply for managing global supply chain management in post pandemic era. Finally it was suggested to implement digitalization in the platform of block chain technology to build-up a robust and sustainable global supply chain management to handle any such situation arise in the future. Keywords: Supply chain management, COVID-19, Global food supply chain (FSCs), Digitalization, Block chain technology DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-17-08 Publication date: June 30th 2020

Supply chains have inherent risk given the number of actors that interface. While there are some chains that have low frequencies of unfavorable events, many continuously face uncertainty. Food production has many uncertainties along the global supply chain. The global nature of the large logistical networks increases its complexity. Two main sources of uncertainty arise: External and internal to the SC. External factors mainly come from nature (such as “El Niño” phenomenon) and from human activities (such as food and nutrition policy and standards). Internal factors mainly come from operations such as a cold chain disruption. Thus, one needs to minimize risk and improve resilience in order to achieve food security and sustainability. It is then imperative that risk management practices be integrated into the supply chain design and management process. This chapter presents an overview of the main risks involved in global food supply chains, as well as some techniques for risk management.

Supply chains have inherent risk given the number of actors that interface. While there are some chains that have low frequencies of unfavorable events, many continuously face uncertainty. Food production has many uncertainties along the global supply chain. The global nature of the large logistical networks increases its complexity. Two main sources of uncertainty arise: External and internal to the SC. External factors mainly come from nature (such as “El Niño” phenomenon) and from human activities (such as food and nutrition policy and standards). Internal factors mainly come from operations such as a cold chain disruption. Thus, one needs to minimize risk and improve resilience in order to achieve food security and sustainability. It is then imperative that risk management practices be integrated into the supply chain design and management process. This chapter presents an overview of the main risks involved in global food supply chains, as well as some techniques for risk management.

Reducing post-harvest food losses through innovative collaboration: Insights from the Colombian and Mexican avocado supply chains

PurposeTo delve into the integration of global logistics and supply chain networks amidst the digital transformation era. This study aims to investigate the potential role of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in facilitating the integration of global flows encompassing both tangible goods and intangibles. Additionally, the study seeks to incorporate third-party logistics activities into a comprehensive global logistics and supply chain integration framework.Design/methodology/approachPrior research is synthesised into a global logistics and supply chain integration framework. A case study was undertaken on Yuan Tong (YTO) express group to investigate the framework, employing qualitative data analysis techniques. The study specifically examined the context of the BRI to enhance comprehension of its impact on global supply chains. Information was collected in particular to two types of supply chain flows, the physical flow of goods, and intangible information and cash flows.FindingsThe proposed framework aligns well with the case study, leading to the identification of global logistics and supply chain integration enablers. The results demonstrate a range of ways BRI promotes global logistics and supply chain integration.Research limitations/implicationsThe case study, with multiple examples, focuses on how third-party logistics firms can embrace global logistics and supply chain integration in line with BRI. The case study approach limits generalisation, further applications in different contexts are required to validate the findings.Originality/valueThe framework holds promise for aiding practitioners and researchers in gaining deeper insights into the role of the BRI in global logistics and supply chain integration within the digital era. The identified enablers underscore the importance of emphasising key factors necessary for success in navigating digital transformation within global supply chains.

Blockchain refers to distributed ledger technologies that can store, maintain, and update data collaboratively along a network of computing nodes. With the help of cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, and consensus mechanisms, data input to the blockchain is simultaneously and permanently recorded and updated in all the nodes of the network, ensuring a high level of consistency and authenticity of such data. Given such technological advantages, blockchain’s potential to revolutionize the global food supply chain seems salient: transforming paper-based documents into a blockchain-enabled identity to generate a high level of transparency and data integrity, enabling smaller farmers to bypass middlemen in crops trading and cash transfers, and providing an efficient and cost-effective way to manage the production system. In 2017, IBM announced a collaboration with a few major food producers and retailers, including, inter alia, Dole, Nestlé, Tyson Foods, Kroger, Unilever, and Wal-Mart, to leverage disruptive technologies such as blockchain to enhance quality control, food safety, management, and traceability. Similarly, the United Nations World Food Program launched the “Building Block” program in 2017, which uses iris-scanning technologies and blockchains to help Syrian refugees verify their identities and directly receive aid without intermediaries. Despite such promising developments, blockchain is not a silver bullet to solve all food governance issues. Rather, there may be some new challenges that need to be adequately addressed. As argued by this chapter, “blockchainizing” governance of food safety, traceability, and sustainability may pose another layer of regulatory questions about technical capacity and infrastructure gaps, scalability and implementation costs, global standardization politics, cybersecurity and data protection, and the technologically inherent limits of blockchain. In addition, policy challenges to both developed and developing countries (albeit in different ways) in terms of operational expertise and technical infrastructure, scalability and implementation costs, and power asymmetry in international standard-setting cannot be ignored. More generally, this chapter argues that such regulatory questions may call for a reconceptualization of the forms and substances of conventional food law and policy as well as data protection law, anti-trust law, and trade law. In this light, this chapter calls for a more technologically informed policy-making process before rushing into the hype of blockchainizing food law.

Blockchain technology has been forwarded as an innovation to address pressing sustainability challenges in global food supply chains. However, limited studies have critically examined the technology's role in advancing sustainability. Drawing on the literature on sustainability-oriented innovation and innovation resistance theory, we explore the potential of blockchain technology to contribute to sustainable transformations within food supply chains. We reflect on 18 expert interviews with various actors across global food supply chains to evaluate the opportunities for, and resistance to, Blockchain technology as a driver of sustainability. The findings reveal that Blockchain is used within food supply chains as both a tool for sustainability as well as a broader philosophical mindset for addressing sustainability challenges. We reveal the opportunities for Blockchain technology as a sustainability-oriented innovation that can ensure fairer supply chains, enhance food traceability, and drive environmental sustainability. We also unpack the resistance to Blockchain that hinder its potential as a sustainability-oriented innovation which include functional and psychological barriers alongside cooperative barriers and protection of the status quo. Our study contributes to the broader literature on sustainability-oriented innovation and innovation resistance theory.

With the frequent occurrence of geopolitical, economic and military conflicts in the world, the supply chain security of the global food industry chain is facing serious challenges. In this paper, global food supply chain security(FSCS) is divided into two dimensions: food supply chain dependence and food supply chain concentration, based on cross-country panel data of 68 food-producing countries around the world from 2001 to 2021, firstly, to analyze the global food security situation, and then, based on constructing indexes to measure the agricultural scientific and technological innovation, to empirically estimate empirical estimation of the agricultural scientific and technological innovation(ASTI) capacity impact on global food supply chain security. The results of the study show that agricultural science and technology innovation capacity has a negative impact on both food supply chain concentration and food supply chain dependence; on the whole, the improvement of agricultural science and technology innovation capacity can bring about a decrease in global food supply chain concentration and dependence.

The global food supply chain needs to evolve to meet a 50 percent increase in food demand by 2050. While food production grows every year, according to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), around 25 percent of roots and tubers, 20 percent of fruits and vegetables, 8 percent of grains and pulses, and 13 percent of animal products are lost before distribution. The majority of such losses are attributed to inadequate monitoring and poor handling during storage and transport. Moreover, the handling of produce in the supply chain also impacts its nutritional content and shelf life. Such losses, when coupled with the rising frequency of epidemics and climate events, further exacerbate the problem of food security for the global population. In addressing the problem of food loss in the supply chain, the biggest hurdle is the lack of traceability and information. On one hand, precision farming helps improve food production efficiency. On the other hand, useful insights post-harvest are not measured due to cost limitations. The ones that are measured often end up in silos or are lost. To overcome these challenges, we propose a framework that leverages low-power IoT sensing networks, smart edges, and data-driven optimization to re-invent the supply chain. In this work, we derive from lessons learned while working with various agricultural supply chain partners and share insights based on some technology solutions that we have explored. We take a bottom-up approach in analyzing the major challenges faced by today's food supply chain. Starting with individual food pallets, we propose ways to develop an agile and low-cost data pipeline that can sense and track the food as it moves through the global supply chain. Further, we propose a dedicated optimization framework that can leverage cloud analytics to boost sustainability and efficiency in the global food chain to meet the growing demand.