Investigation of blockchain technology integration within food supply chain management

Abstract

Blockchain technologies (BT) began to be used in many areas because of the many advantages they offer. In this respect, BT applications take place in different types of supply chains. One of the areas where blockchain is used is the food supply chain (FSC). FSC is a general concept that also covers different types such as agri-FSC and cold chain. These supply chains need the ad-vantages of modern BT for crucial reasons such as the products' time-dependent nature and direct impact on human health. We evaluate the use of blockchain applications in the field of FSC in order to provide a deep understanding of problems inherent to the FSC and present insights to companies into developing and implementing their own blockchain-driven solutions to address the FSC performance challenges. As the FSC is a complex and dynamic system, where multi-stakeholders are involved, a systematic approach should be established to reveal the BT integration behavior of the FSC. An extensive literature review was conducted within the scope of the study. A critical review of the studies shows which BT applications are used in the FSC chain to drive supply chain performance, their application areas, and main problems in various aspects in the applications. Using the causal loop diagram (CLD) as a system dynamics approach, the interrelationship of causes and effects is visualized and prescriptive information is generated to guide researchers and practitioners in the field of new technology adoption in FSCs in general and BT integration in particular. This study is intended to encourage the use of BT in FSC applications.