Food Traceability Information Research Articles

The Role of Blockchain Technology in Promoting Traceability Systems in Agri-Food Production and Supply Chains.

Due to recurring food quality and safety issues, growing segments of consumers, especially in developed markets, and regulators in agri-food supply chains (AFSCs) require a fast and trustworthy system to retrieve necessary information on their food products. With the existing centralized traceability systems used in AFSCs, it is difficult to acquire full traceability information, and there are risks of information loss and data tampering. To address these challenges, research on the application of blockchain technology (BCT) for traceability systems in the agri-food sector is increasing, and startup companies have emerged in recent years. However, there have been only a limited number of reviews on the application of BCT in the agriculture sector, especially those that focus on the BCT-based traceability of agricultural goods. To bridge this knowledge gap, we reviewed 78 studies that integrated BCT into traceability systems in AFSCs and additional relevant papers, mapping out the main types of food traceability information. The findings indicated that the existing BCT-based traceability systems focus more on fruit and vegetables, meat, dairy, and milk. A BCT-based traceability system enables one to develop and implement a decentralized, immutable, transparent, and reliable system in which process automation facilitates the monitoring of real-time data and decision-making activities. We also mapped out the main traceability information, key information providers, and challenges and benefits of the BCT-based traceability systems in AFSCs. These helped to design, develop, and implement BCT-based traceability systems, which, in turn, will contribute to the transition to smart AFSC systems. This study comprehensively illustrated that implementing BCT-based traceability systems also has important, positive implications for improving AFSC management, e.g., reductions in food loss and food recall incidents and the achievement of the United Nations SDGs (1, 3, 5, 9, 12). This will contribute to existing knowledge and be useful for academicians, managers, and practitioners in AFSCs, as well as policymakers.

Systematic assessment of food traceability information loss: A case study of the Bangladesh export shrimp supply chain

Traceability information systems in food supply chains (FSCs) can suffer from information loss, and this can cause food safety crises and economic downturns around the world. Information loss happens as a result of inefficiencies in material and information flows caused by the vulnerabilities associated with either the internal traceability systems of individual FSC operators and/or external traceability systems between them. A structured comprehensive approach to identify and analyse these vulnerabilities in an entire FSC encompassing both of its internal and external traceability systems is still absent in the literature. This paper develops a systematic information loss assessment technique, modifying and integrating Failure mode effect and criticality analysis (FMECA) and a traceability modelling tool, Material and information flow modelling technique (MIFMT). To demonstrate the proposed method, the study uses data derived from a primary case study on Bangladesh export shrimp supply chain comprising a farm, a depot and a processor. Providing standardised visualisation and quantitative information loss evaluation, the proposed method offers a systematic approach for analysing vulnerabilities in the food traceability system. The results of this approach are used to make specific reengineering suggestions to improve the existing shrimp traceability system in Bangladesh. The proposed method could be applied widely in various FSCs to support systematic reengineering e.g. blockchain and IoT implementation in existing traceability systems.

Consumer Trust in Food and the Food System: A Critical Review.

Increased focus towards food safety and quality is reshaping food purchasing decisions around the world. Although some food attributes are visible, many of the attributes that consumers seek and are willing to pay a price premium for are not. Consequently, consumers rely on trusted cues and information to help them verify the food quality and credence attributes they seek. In this study, we synthesise the findings from previous research to generate a framework illustrating the key trust influencing factors that are beyond visual and brand-related cues. Our framework identifies that consumer trust in food and the food system is established through the assurances related to individual food products and the actors of the food system. Specifically, product assurance builds consumer trust through food packaging labels communicating food attribute claims, certifications, country or region of origin, and food traceability information. In addition, producers, processors, and retailers provide consumers with food safety and quality assurances, while government agencies, third-party institutions, advocacy groups, and the mass media may modify how labelling information and food operators are perceived by consumers. We hope our framework will guide future research efforts to test these trust factors in various consumer and market settings.

Traceability system for quality monitoring in the fishery and aquaculture value chain

Nowadays it is important to know the origins of most products, not only for public health reasons, with regard to food products, but also because of the increasing people's awareness of environmental and social aspects, posing new challenges in the quality of products and their environmental impact. Food traceability information must be collected throughout the supply chain, and be registered on a platform external to all operators in that chain. This information must be available, not only to value chain operators and public health authorities, but also to end customers. One of the best ways to provide customers with this traceability information, in the places where they need to make a decision about which products to buy, is to add kiosks at the points of sale for those products. This article describes the design and architecture of a traceability platform for fish and fishery products, within the scope of the ValorMar R&D project, as well as the applications that supply the platform with traceability information, and a kiosk application for points of sale and a mobile app for final consumers, which will allow them to consult the traceability of fish and fishery products' lots. • A new traceability platform for tracing fish and derived products from sea to fork. • The platform comprises a microservices backend, and kiosk and mobile user apps. • Platform allows easy recall of fish lots by authorities, for food safety reasons. • Traceability, taxonomy and nutritional information is provided to value chain users. • The backend has been stress tested, and user apps have been tested for usability.

A study on Chinese consumer preferences for food traceability information using best-worst scaling.

Food safety is a global public health issue, which often arises from asymmetric information between consumers and suppliers. With the development of information technology in human life, building a food traceability information sharing platform is viewed as one of the best ways to overcome the trust crisis and resolve the problem of information asymmetry in China. However, among the myriad information available from the food supply chain, there is a lack of knowledge on consumer preference. Based on the best-worst scaling approach, this paper investigated consumer preferences for vegetable, pork, and dairy product traceability information. Specifically, this paper measured the relative importance that consumers place on the traceable information. The results indicate that consumers have varying priorities for information in different cases. “Pesticide/veterinary use,” “picking/slaughtering date,” and “fertilizer/feed use” are the most preferred traceable information for Chinese consumers in the case of vegetables, while “picking/slaughtering date” and “history of illness and taking protective measures” are the most preferred information in the case of pork. In the case of dairy products, consumers prefer “processing information,” “environmental information of the origin,” and “traceable tag certification information” most. The results of this study call for the direct involvement of the Chinese government in the food safety information sharing system as following. First, given consumers’ diverse preferences, different types of traceable information should be recorded into the information sharing platform depending on food types. Second, the government could promote the step-by-step construction of such a platform based on the priority of consumers’ preferences. Third, new technology should be applied to guarantee the reliability of traceable information. Finally, local preferences in terms of the way consumers receive and understand information should be taken into consideration.

Would Enterprises Send Food Traceability Information to Consumers?

<p>Food security incidents have enhanced Chinese consumers’ concerns about food quality and security. These growing concerns have increased demand for security of food and led to development of Chinese food traceability system. Based on the literature review, this paper built a signaling dynamic game model of information delivery from enterprises to consumers to explore the refining Bayes Nash equilibrium. The analytical results show that “good” enterprise need to send enough food traceability information to get themselves separated from “bad” enterprises, while enterprises which were “not that good” had to send much more information to achieve that trust of consumers.</p>

The Establishment of the Pork Product Traceability System Based on RFID

in order to ensure the quality and safety of pork products, improve the pork food traceability information real-time, reliability and accuracy, this study adopts B/S structure, designed and implemented based on radio frequency identification technology (RFID), bar code technology, network information technology of pork products traceability system. The system through the electronic tag and barcode for pork food raw material source, production and processing, logistics, and real-time tracking, the terminal sales each link of each link and data transmission through the network to the system server. Consumers on the basis of tracing the source through the computer and mobile terminal can be convenient and quick query ginseng food traceability information.

Food Safety Traceability Systems in the Maritime Catering Logistics

This paper aims to explore food safety traceability in the onboard food and beverage operations on cruise ships through a case study approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with galley and foodservice staff. Additionally, a self-administered questionnaire was designed and distributed to logistics managers and employees of three Egyptian cruise companies. Results indicated that cruise ships in this study use paper-based and manually-entered (electronically stored) data traceability systems. Managing food safety by effective product recall, complying with legislation, and improving product quality are among the most important perceived benefits identified by foodservice staff. Maintaining a good reputation, ensuring food safety, reducing foodborne illnesses, suppliers' commitment to quality specifications, and maintaining guest confidence are considered the most important benefits from implementing a food traceability system. The results also depicted that the challenges managers face implementing or improving a food traceability system included high cost, absence of unified traceability standards between cruise companies and food suppliers, shortage of skilled staff, and lack of knowledge and satisfaction with current foodservice operation systems onboard cruise ships. Other findings elucidated that the critical success factors for implementing traceability included strict food traceability legislation, ensuring the adequacy and correctness of traceability information, adopting a food traceability system by the cruise company management, the standardization of food traceability information identification, and technology support for food traceability systems implementation from government. Other factors were reported of less importance. This research concluded the urgent need for more cooperation between cruise companies, food suppliers, and relevant governmental authorities to adopt food traceability systems and the need of authorizing and setting compulsory standards and regulations.

Managing food traceability information using EPCIS framework

This paper introduces a new methodology for modeling traceability information using the EPCIS framework and UML statecharts. The method follows the approach of defining states and transitions in food production. A generic model is presented and evaluated based on its practical application by providing illustrations from two supply chains; frozen mackerel production and corn wet milling processes. All states and transitions for these processes as well as the information that needs to be captured for each state are indentified. This includes the product, process and quality information. The model presented in this paper is not just another process modeling tool but is used for mapping of food production processes to provide improved description and integration of traceability information. Information exchange technologies such as EPCIS are used for monitoring events based on logistic processes. Application of current EPCIS framework for managing food traceability information is presented by mapping the transitions identified in two product chains to the EPCIS events. The corresponding quality parameters to be linked to these EPCIS events are also identified. It was practical to map food production transitions for frozen mackerel to two EPCIS events; ObjectEvent and AggregationEvent. Because, EPCIS is based on discrete recording of events and event locations and corn wet milling is a continuous process, it was not possible to map transitions to AggregationEvent. Thus, quality parameters for transformation events for corn wet milling were linked to the subsequent ObjectEvent to provide certain extent of discretization.