The future of traceability technology in the food industry

Abstract: The food industry faces many challenges in its sustainability work, and consumers demand that companies in the food industry should increase their transparency. For the food industry to be more transparent, it must improve its traceability throughout the supply chain. Previous research let us know that traceability is not a new thing, but the way that new technologies such as blockchain revolutionize the way data can be communicated. Many companies have just started to use this to trace the supplies along their supply chain and are not using the data collected in the most efficient way. Therefore, this thesis presents data from two illustrative case studies to show the opportunities and challenges of using blockchain traceability technology. The opportunities show the benefits of being the first mover in the market to create new boosts for the products together with increasing consumer loyalty through more transparency. This paper also concludes that it's expensive to implement new technology in the supply chain and challenging to encourage consumers to make a local, organic, or sustainable choice despite the higher cost of the products.