The Potential of Blockchain Technology in the Transition towards Sustainable Food Systems

Abstract

Food systems are both contributing to and affected by environmental degradation and climate change. The transition towards resilient and sustainable food systems is essential to ensure food security and minimise negative environmental impacts. Innovative technologies can accelerate this transition. Blockchain technology (BCT) is attracting attention as it can deliver transparency to complex global food supply chains and has the potential to guide current food production towards better sustainability and efficiency. This case study investigated the opportunities that BCT can offer to food supply chains. Qualitative interviews with eight main BCT providers were conducted to evaluate the current state of BCT and put it into perspective by mapping out advantages, disadvantages, incentives, motives, and expectations connected to its implementation in global food systems. A thematic analysis showed that, while BCT was considered beneficial by all interviewees, uptake is slow due to high implementation costs and the lack of incentives for companies throughout the food chain from farms to food industry and retail. Results further revealed that the advantages of BCT go beyond communication of trustworthy information and development of closer producer–consumer relationships. In fact, it can provide the opportunity to decrease food waste, enhance working conditions throughout the supply chain, and promote sustainable consumption habits. As BCT may be increasingly used in the food supply chain, the results give a basis for future research that may leverage both qualitative and quantitative methods to examine actors’ behaviours. Also, the importance of improving user experiences through functional applications and software to facilitate the adoption of the technology is stressed.

Blockchain Technology and Sustainability in Supply Chains and a Closer Look at Different Industries: A Mixed Method Approach

“…FSCs are quickly getting more and more complex in today's globalizing environment [96,110,118,120]. Recently, due to several terrible events such as environmental deterioration, climate change, population growth, resource scarcity, and food waste caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have further increased the problems in sustainable FSCs on a global scale [99,110,[121][122][123][124][125][126][127]. These problems have a lot to gain from blockchain technology's distributed ledger, transparency, traceability, and other aspects [128,129].…”

“…These problems have a lot to gain from blockchain technology's distributed ledger, transparency, traceability, and other aspects [128,129]. To ensure food safety and reduce harmful environmental impacts, it is necessary to move towards resilient and sustainable food systems [126,130] with the help of BT.…”

“…BT has the potential to increase existing food production in a cost-effective and sustainable manner [126,139]. It can provide shorter transit distances, quicker payment settlements [102], and the avoidance of food waste [102,103,105,140].…”

“…With the help of data integration, suppliers and buyers can communicate directly without the need for intermediaries [128,149], and, through the elimination of intermediaries in the agri-food supply chain [122,150], farmer income may be increased. By tracking the source of food, blockchain helps build trust between producers and consumers [151,152], forecast demand [135], increase awareness, and help the transition to a more sustainable food system [126].…”

“…Improved visibility and traceability, as well as the immutability of records, are also recognized as advantages of BT [98,126,129,[153][154][155][156] that may be helpful for regulators in assisting with the identification and reduction of possible food fraud cases [110,123,149,157,158], and counterfeiting [102,135,159] especially for society in less developed nations and rural areas [108,149]. One of the basic human rights is a healthy diet.…”