Unearthing the barriers of Internet of Things adoption in food supply chain: A developing country perspective

Abstract

The food industry substantially contributes to global economic and social development despite several complications such as food safety and security, traceability, food quality, etc. These challenges could be resolved through the recent developments in smart technologies including Internet-of-Things (IoT). IoT is unique technology that have the potential to solve numerous Food Supply Chain (FSC) challenges such as product traceability, food safety and security etc. However, adoption of the IoT in the FSC poses significant challenges, particularly in developing countries. Therefore, this study explores the barriers that hinder IoT adoption in the FSC. In order to fulfil this objective, fourteen barriers related to the adoption of IoT in the FSC are identified through the literature review. These barriers are analysed with the fuzzy Delphi method in consultation with the expert team. Through the fuzzy Delphi method, twelve significant barriers have been finalised that need to be overcome for the development of an IoT-enabled FSC. These barriers include the complex framework, IoT affordability, poor IT infrastructure, legal and regulatory standards, low awareness about IoT benefits, lack of skilled personnel, trust management, absence of knowledge management system, data heterogeneity, high investment and maintenance cost and IoT supplier scarcity. The findings of this study are helpful for FSC managers to make their supply chain digitalised by overcoming these barriers. Further, the policy planner could analyse their food supply chain in the context of the identified barriers to understand their cause so that they could better prepare themselves to adopt IoT.