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BIJ
29,10
3426
Received 24 August 2021
Revised 21 November 2021
10 December 2021
Accepted 23 December 2021
Benchmarking: An International
Journal
Vol. 29 No. 10, 2022
pp. 3426-3442
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1463-5771
DOI 10.1108/BIJ-08-2021-0495
Application of blockchain
technology for agrifood supply
chain management: a systematic
literature review on benefits
and challenges
Ayushi Srivastava and Kavya Dashora
Centre for Rural Development and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi,
New Delhi, India
Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to explore and analyze the application of blockchain technology (BKCT) in
agrifood supply chain management (AFSM).
Design/methodology/approach – A systematic literature review (SLR) using Scopus, Emerald and Web of
Science covering publications from 2016 to 2021 (till June). Out of 429 papers, 89 papers were shortlisted from
journals based on citation analysis. The citation analysis was followed by a content analysis was for an
in-depth analysis.
Findings – Regarding the application of BKCT in the agrifood supply chain, the study highlights the issue of
food safety, traceability, transparency, eliminating intermediaries and integrating Internet of things (IoT) with
BKCT as prominent applications in the agrifood sector. The study also uses the case of honey supply chain to
use the explored applications in the agrifood sector and provides a traceability solution based on blockchain
integrated with IoT. The challenges of BKCT as identified in the study are scalability, privacy, security, lack of
regulations and lack of skills and training.
Research limitations/implications – The review considers only academic papers obtained from specific
databases with their relevance based on number of citations.
Originality/value – The study contributes to filling the existing research gap through this SLR on the
application of BKCT in AFSCM. The content analysis further assists in exploring the benefits and challenges of
BKCT in the agrifood sector. Thus, the academic articles selected aid in this process.
Keywords Blockchain technology, Internet of things, Agrifood supply chain, Supply chain management
Paper type General review
1. Introduction
An agrifood supply chain is characterized by various stakeholders including producers,
processors, suppliers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers and consumers. Multiple
stakeholders make the supply chain complex to manage and with an evident information
asymmetry between these stakeholders in the supply chain. The concern and awareness
regarding food safety and food authenticity are rising among consumers (Nagaraj, 2021).
Despite the efforts to manage agrifood supply chains efficiently, a large number of food fraud
cases have been reported in the past (van Ruth et al., 2017). Food frauds are committed with an
intent to maximize profits out of false means which lead to cases of health hazards and lack of
consumer trust in the product. Thus, these incidents increase the urgency to manage the
agrifood supply chains and maintain consumer trust. Counterfeiting is a huge concern for
various industries especially in the case of the food industry as the risk of consumers’ health
is at stake (Modgil and Sonwaney, 2019).
Agrifood supply chain management (AFSM) has gathered increased attention among the
firms, regulatory authorities and consumers. AFSM has initiated traceability implementation
practices i.e. tracking food using forward and backward linkage. Traceability has led to
achieving food mitigation, food crisis management, fraud prevention and anticounterfeiting Application of
measures (Dabbene et al., 2014). In more recent times, Internet of things (IoT)-based BKCT in the
techniques such as barcoding, QR code and RFID were used to enable traceability of
products. However, these techniques are susceptible to fraud and mismanagement of data
agrifood sector
(Galvez et al., 2018). The IoT-based techniques are centralized in nature and prone to a single
point of failure. Research indicates that technologies working on a centralized structure can
be manipulated, hacked or corrupted easily because of dependence on a single authority.
The recent emergence of blockchain technology (BKCT) has created a wide range of 3427
possibilities for scholars and practitioners worldwide. BKCT started with the concept of
cryptocurrencies and has now found application in the healthcare, finance, energy and food
sector. BKCT works on a decentralized platform, thus helping to overcome the shortcomings
of the technologies built on a centralized network (Ehrenberg and King, 2020). It is a
distributed ledger system that is based on consensus among the peers on the network. The
foundation of BKCT is trust; it reduces reliance on third-party members in the supply chain.
In addition to these features, BKCT allows storing the data in an irreversible manner, creating
a unique level of credibility, which contributes to an efficient AFSM (Yadav and Singh,
2020a). Zhao et al. (2019) review the use of BKCT for improving AFSM in terms of traceability,
information security, manufacturing and sustainability. Galvez et al. (2018) found that food
traceability can be established through BKCT; it would improve transparency in the food
sector and help resolve food safety issues. The combination of BKCT with IoT has high
potential in enabling a robust and efficient traceability system (Qian et al., 2020).
Aiming to identify the potential benefits and challenges of BKCT in the AFSM, Feng et al.
(2020) analyzed previous studies using a systematic literature review (SLR), identifying 10
potential benefits of using BKCT in AFSM. The main benefits identified were data security,
information transparency, data sharing and improved transaction speed. Another bibliometric
study by Barbosa (2021) explored the BKCT application in AFSM, uses the technique of topic
mapping, co-citation, co-authorship and overlay visualization, the research identified risk
management and sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) as an important application of
BKCT and highlighted that SSCM leads to reduction in food wastage and improving food quality.
Although the emergence of BKCT has increased in the last few years, research on the
application in AFSM lacks a systematic approach. A systematic literature study contributes to
organizing, synthesizing and identifying relevant issues and further research scope. Therefore,
the authors propose exploring the application of BKCT in AFSM and discuss the potential
benefits and challenges associated with it. The study aims to answer the research question of
how can the application of BKCT contribute toward AFSM? For this purpose, the paper has
adopted the methodology of a SLR, instead of a traditional literature review approach.
To achieve this, 429 papers were identified from the relevant journal and conferences. To
achieve the final set, 89 papers were selected to identify how the application of BKCT can lead
to efficient AFSM. The article is structured as follows. The concept and application of BKCT
are presented in Section 2, followed by details of research methodology adopted in Section 3.
Section 4 elaborates on the findings of the application of BKCT in the agrifood sector.
Section 5 presents the use case of BKCT in the honey supply chain, explaining the various
business processes involved and the architecture of the system. The theoretical and
managerial implications and future scope of the study are highlighted in Section 6 followed
by the conclusion in Section 7.

2. Blockchain technology (BKCT)

2.1 Concept
BKCT was first introduced in 2008 and since then has attained widespread popularity
in various applications (Harshavardhan Reddy et al., 2019). It stores data in blocks, in an
BIJ irreversible and immutable manner. The technology adopts the concept of a consensus
29,10 mechanism that assures all the participants in the supply chain agree upon a specific state of
the system (Gourisetti et al., 2020). All the blocks that store data in an encrypted format are
confirmed and validated using a consensus mechanism.
BKCT works on a peer-to-peer network, which is a network of connected users that uses
nodes to store and share information with connected peers. BKCT is often associated with the
term smart contract; these are set of rules enforced when certain predefined conditions are
3428 met (Hua et al., 2018).
According to Hald and Kinra (2019), BKCT is a set of time-stamped blocks linked by a
cryptographic hash and has come to be accepted as a solution to underlying trust and
security issues. The technology has taken the power of tampering with data and altering
essential information from a single party. Xiong et al. (2020) observe, “the application of
blockchain in the agri-food industry can improve process transparency and efficiency,
strengthen trustworthiness, remove unnecessary intermediaries from the supply chain,
besides enhancing the customer’s confidence for traceable food products”.

2.2 Applications
BKCT has found numerous applications ranging from healthcare, data management,
banking, health services, cyber security, IoT and food science. In the case of banking, BKCT
enables fund transfers, registration, eliminating financial intermediaries and maintaining
back-end facilities. Various banks are experimenting with adopting the technology (Garg
et al., 2021). BKCT is reforming the agrifood sector by providing secure agrifood supply
chains. BKCT is being integrated with IoT to develop robust traceability systems. For this
purpose, Tsang et al. (2019) propose a blockchain-IoT-based food traceability system
(BIFTS). The result is a secure and reliable traceability system for the food supply chain
network. The combination of BKCT with IoT gives consumers a platform to consumers to
gain knowledge about the product and thus make an informed decision about the same
(Bumblauskas et al., 2020). Caro et al. (2018) propose AgriBlockIoT approach, a blockchain-
based traceability solution to achieve transparent, auditable and reliable supply chain
management processes. Such a system is based on a decentralized trustless system. Salah
et al. (2019) propose product traceability in an agrifood supply chain through the use of smart
contracts and monitor all kinds of participant interactions and transactions in the supply
chain. BKCT functions through smart contracts which are protocols to digitally verify the
transactions. Such a system would lead to a secure and reliable network free from the
presence of intermediaries (Wang et al., 2019).
Hayati and Gusti Bagus Baskara Nugraha (2018) suggest BKCT for distributing data
among the members of the supply chain without third-party interference. For this purpose,
the authors design FoodTrail Blockchain, which records and tracks the movement and
transformation of food products in the agrifood supply chain. The results indicate that the
proposed design of FoodTrail Blockchain fulfills the distributed, verified and immutable
aspect of the agrifood supply chain. Trust is an important characteristic of BKCT; thus, the
technology can be used to enhance the trustworthiness of businesses processes (BPR). For
this purpose, Johng et al. (2018) propose exploiting blockchain for BPR, first, the trust issues
are diagnosed, and thereafter, business process alternatives are explored through blockchain
on a retail food supply chain.
A contribution was made by Galvez et al. (2018) in the form of AgriOpenData Blockchain,
a system that uses BKCT to ensure traceability in the whole agrifood chain and in the
processing of agricultural products in a transparent, secure, public manner. This integrated
system would be able to certificate the quality of products, thus ensuring authentic
information reaches the end consumers. Saurabh and Dey (2021) uses the cases of the grape
wine supply chain to determine the blockchain adoption factors of supply chain actors and Application of
their willingness to adopt the technology. The results reveal disintermediation, traceability, BKCT in the
price, trust and compliance affect the decision of supply chain actors to adopt IoT-
integrated BKCT.
agrifood sector

3. Methodology 3429
SLR methodology helps organize the relevant literature, explore the various paths and
understand the limitations with the associated research. SLR paves the path for a rigorous
and focused study (Pereira et al., 2014; Tachizawa and Wong, 2014). High-quality and
relevant studies are essential to elaborate the SLR. This SLR intends to produce a study that
identifies, selects and analyzes the existing literature. Thus, the study adopts the
methodology of SLR adapted from Bonatto et al. (2020) for searching relevant literature
related to BKCT and its application in the agrifood sector. The synthesis of this literature
would present the application of blockchain in AFSM and discuss the associated challenges.
The complete methodology of SLR analysis is presented in Figure 1. The inclusion and
exclusion criteria are mentioned in Table 1.
Following research questions have been formulated for this study:
RQ1. What are the current applications of BKCT in the agrifood sector?
RQ2. What are the benefits of applying BKCT in AFSM?
RQ3. What are the challenges of applying BKCT in AFSM?
A search with the keyword “blockchain” is first undertaken. At this stage, the inclusion and
exclusion criteria mentioned in Table 1 were applied for the screening of articles. For this
purpose, three databases, “SCOPUS”, “Web of Science” and “Emerald” are referred to. These
databases are selected because of their comprehensive nature consisting of a large number of
relevant articles and a user-friendly interface to access literature. The study primarily focuses
on finding the application and challenges of BKCT in the field of agrifood, the keywords
selected are “blockchain”, “food” and “agriculture”. Thereafter, a search with keywords
“blockchain” and “food” and “agriculture” is conducted. This selection is presented in Table 2.

Criteria Inclusion criteria Exclusion criteria

Keywords With keywords- blockchain AND food OR

agriculture
Language English Any other language other than
English
Type of Articles, conference papers, conference review, Technical reports, book chapters,
publication review articles and letters
Year 2016–2021 (June) 2022 Table 1.
Publication stage Final Article in press Inclusion and
Citation 1 or more than 1 0 exclusion criteria

Figure 1.
Systematic literature
review analysis flow
BIJ This selection on the basis of keywords would help find papers focusing primarily on
29,10 blockchain in the agrifood sector. With all the keywords, “blockchain” AND “food” AND
“agriculture”, 429 documents were obtained. Thereafter, the articles were assessed for their
quality based on title and thorough reading of the abstract. In this process, 167 articles were
selected. The number of citations of a particular article results in the identification of the most
influential publication in the associated field (Coombes and Nicholson, 2013). Therefore, on
this basis, 89 studies with at least one citation were selected for further analysis. Figure 2
3430 depicts the number of publications from the time line 2016 to 2021 (June). The rising trend
depicts the popularity of BKCT in the agrifood sector.

4. Results and discussions

Citation analysis, a widely used bibliometric method, was first used by Gross and Gross
(1927) to evaluate the importance of scientific work. Thereafter, content analysis is used to
synthesize the main findings of the articles selected in the SLR. Table 3 presents the selected
articles with the number of publications and journal names. These publications were grouped
according to the framework in Table 1.

4.1 Keyword analysis

A network mapping of keywords of the selected papers is presented in Figure 3. This network
map is constructed through VoS viewer software. The size of the term denotes the number of
occurrences; the larger the size, the more the occurrence of the keyword in the publications.
For constructing a term map for the association of keywords in the publication, a thesaurus
file was made to ensure consistency in the terms (e.g. blockchain technology, block chain was
replaced with blockchain).

Keywords Selection Scopus Web of science Emerald

Blockchain Before 21,419 5,316 1,612

Table 2. After 7,327 2,500 1,309
Selection of studies on Blockchain, agriculture, and food Before 317 172 45
the basis of keywords After 267 130 32

Figure 2.
Publications by year
Journal No. of publications
Application of
BKCT in the
IEEE Access 17 agrifood sector
Advantages in Intelligent Systems and Computing 16
Sustainability 9
Journal of Cleaner Production 7
Lecture Notes in Computer Science Including Subseries 4
Trends in Food Science and Technology 4 3431
Sensors 3
Electronics 3
Communications in Computer and Information Science 2
International Journal of Advanced Computer Science 2
Food Control 2
Foods 2
Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 2
Computers in Industry 2
Smart Innovation Systems and Technologies 1
Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 1
International Journal of Information Management 1
Food Science and Technology 1
Food Analytical Methods 1
Ad Hoc Networks 1
Decision Sciences 1
International Journal of Production Research 1
Global Food Security 1
IEEE Internet of Things 1 Table 3.
Food and Energy Security 1 Number of
IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management 1 publications selected in
IEEE Transactions on Services Computing 1 the systematic
Information Systems Frontiers 1 literature review

Figure 3.
Network mapping of
keywords
BIJ The components are classified into five clusters, e.g. the red cluster primarily consists of
29,10 terms directly associated with the application of BKCT for traceability, such as security
of data, authentication, data acquisition, data privacy, etc.; the green cluster consists of
keywords related to AFSM such as food production, food processing and food safety; the
purple cluster consists of terms exclusively associated with BKCT architecture such as peer
to peer, smart contracts, business transaction, among the others; the yellow cluster consists of
keywords which show the association of BKCT with industry 4.0 such as IoT, big data,
3432 machine learning and learning systems; and the blue cluster largely consists of terms
concerned with properties of BKCT, such as decentralization, cryptography, trust and
consensus algorithm. The keywords with maximum occurrence in publications focusing on
BKCT in the food sector are food safety, traceability, followed by the IoT. This indicates that
the majority of selected papers consider the use of BKCT in AFSM for establishing
traceability and improving food safety. The integration of IoT with BKCT is considered a
favorable combination in the field of AFSM.

4.2 Benefits of BKCT in AFSM

The articles selected in the SLR concentrated on the applications, benefits and challenges of
blockchain implementation in agrifood supply chains. The most frequently occurring benefit
is traceability. BKCT provides a permanent database for recording each transaction, a means
for monitoring real-time data at different stages of the supply chain. Moreover, BKCT-
enabled traceability enables the participants to draw the life cycle of the product from origin
to end. The benefit of transparency also occurs frequently in the literature search.
Traceability along with transparency has benefitted the agrifood supply chains in several
ways. In addition, integrating BKCT with IoT is known to provide technical advantages to
agrifood firms. It has resulted in robust, resilient and automated systems. The other
advantage of BKCT is eliminating the need for intermediaries. Research suggests that
removing the intermediaries from the supply chain has reduced the transaction costs and
improved overall profits. Overall, BKCT helps in achieving the overall goal of food safety in a
way to minimize health risks and increases consumer trust. Table 4 provides a consolidated
list of benefits and the resulting outcomes.
4.2.1 Traceability. Traceability is an important element of AFSM and existing traceability
technologies such as RFID, QR Code or Barcode fail to provide reliability, scalability and
information accuracy (Srivastava and Dashora, 2021; Tsang et al., 2019). The overall process
of traceability through these technologies is time-consuming and complex. On the other hand,
BKCT guarantees to provide these benefits. Lin et al. (2019) found BKCT as a promising
technology for the food safety traceability system because of the characteristics like the

Perceived benefits Outcome References

Traceability Minimizing food frauds Kayikci et al. (2020), Saberi et al.

Irreversible storage of data (2019), Yadav and Singh (2020b)
Effective monitoring of supply chains
Transparency Smooth transactions and information Kamble et al. (2019), Papadopoulos
exchange et al. (2021)
Integration of BKCT Resilient, automated systems Atlam et al. (2018), Reyna et al. (2018)
Table 4. with IoT
The benefits and Elimination of Reduction in transaction costs, increasing Bumblauskas et al. (2020), Chen et al.
resulting outcomes of intermediaries profits, streamlining business processes (2021)
BKCT in the agrifood Food safety Minimizing health risks, promoting Casino et al. (2019), Galvez et al. (2018)
sector consumer health, better economic returns
irreversible time vector, smart contract and consensus algorithm. Chen et al. (2021) are of the Application of
view that BKCT provides quick and accurate traceability in food supply chains, facilitates BKCT in the
recording data in a permanent and real-time manner. Wu et al. (2019) discuss that BKCT
saves the response time in comparison with the time taken by other technologies. Walmart
agrifood sector
and Kroger were among the first companies to initiate the use of BKCT in food supply chains
using the case studies of Chinese pork and Mexican mangoes. The results indicated that
identifying the origin and history of the product improved drastically from 6.5 days with
traditional methods to a few seconds in the case of BKCT (Kamath, 2018). 3433
4.2.2 Transparency. Baralla et al. (2019) suggest that the distributed and immutable nature
of BKCT can be exploited to promote supply chain transparency. Tian (2017) term BKCT as a
groundbreaking innovation which though in its initial stage can provide supply chains with
the benefit of openness, transparency and reliability. Sander et al. (2018) use the case of meat
traceability to evaluate the potential of acceptance of BKCT as viable traceability and
transparent system.
Niranjanamurthy et al. (2019) discuss that BKCT leads to transparent supply chains; it
allows to validate the transactions through a peer-to-peer network, easing the process of
transformation exchange among the stakeholders in the agrifood supply chains.
4.2.3 Integration of BKCT with Internet of things (IoT). IoT has emerged disruptive
through its technologies ranging from wireless sensor networks (WSN) to radio frequency
identification (RFID). Gopi et al. (2019) consider the use of BKCT with technologies such as
RFID to know the geographical origin of the produce. Reyna et al. (2018) discuss the immense
potential of BKCT in revolutionizing the IoT. BKCT together with IoT helps recognize data
source at any time and promotes data immutability and security. Arena et al. (2019) explain
the integration of BKCT with IoT as an opportunity to implement traceability and address
food contamination issues, like in the case of extra virgin olive oil, a blockchain-based system,
“Bruschetta”, in combination with IoT platform is developed, this system ensures tracing the
supply chain from plantation to shops and providing trustworthy information to the end
consumers. Bettın-Dıaz et al. (2018) analyzes the use case of the coffee industry to integrate
blockchain with IoT in the supply chain and monitor its effects; the result is a versatile and
adaptable methodology that may suit any product. However, the use of excessive number of
IoT’s on the same network may pose challenges to security and scalability.
4.2.4 Elimination of intermediaries. BKCT is a distributed ledger that stores all
transactions held on a blockchain network in a distributed manner. It works on a peer-to-peer
system that eliminates the need for any central authority to authenticate the transactions in
the network, thus removing the need for middlemen and promoting transparency and overall
security. Salah et al. (2019) propose the solution of removing intermediaries through
recording transactions in a blockchain immutable ledger. This solution eliminates the need
for a trusted centralized authority and enhances the efficiency of the proposed traceability
system. Chen et al. (2021) emphasize that the elimination of intermediaries reduces the overall
cost at the end-user side with an improved return to participants in the supply chain. Kamath
(2018) discusses that several companies like Walmart are utilizing BKCT to promote food
safety by exploiting its unique characteristic of removing intermediaries from the food
supply chain.
4.2.5 Food safety. In the present times, the food supply chains are becoming more complex,
and their fragmented nature acts as an impediment in establishing efficient traceability
systems. Food supply chains such as beef (Hayati and Gusti Bagus Baskara Nugraha, 2018),
seafood (Gopi et al., 2019) and olive oil (Arena et al., 2019) have been highly vulnerable to food
safety concerns and contamination risks. Meidayanti et al. (2019) discuss the vulnerability of
the beef supply chain for issues such as counterfeiting, excessive use of preservatives and
chemicals. Thus, in this study, the authors suggest the use of blockchain to verify the origin of
input materials in the beef supply chain. This blockchain-based system would ensure a
BIJ transparent and efficient supply chain. In addition to the above food products, several other
29,10 food supply chains like that of seafood are facing challenges of adulteration in the form of
species substitution, exchange of fresh aquaculture produces with wild-caught fishes, and
vice versa. Adulterated or contaminated food results in huge economic losses. Thus, food
safety is of particular concern, especially in recent times, when consumers are increasingly
demanding better quality and safe food. BKCT has the potential to address food safety
challenges (Kshetri, 2018).
3434 In light of the benefits of BKCT in AFSM, several companies, start-ups and initiatives are
using BKCT to improve supply chain management and implement traceability solutions. The
list of companies implementing BKCT at the industrial level is presented in Table 5.

4.3 Challenges of implementing BKCT in AFSM

While the benefits of BKCT cannot be undermined and the implementation of BKCT has been
considered revolutionary for the agrifood sector, certain challenges need to be identified for
wider implementation of the technology and the benefit of the agrifood industry. The
following challenges of BKCT in the agrifood sector have been identified.
4.3.1 Privacy. Although this property guarantees transparency in supply chains, it does
not guarantee the protection of users’ privacy (Kamilaris et al., 2019; Zhao et al., 2019). This
property of data visibility through blockchain might compromise privacy issues and give
way to surveillance by a central authority, hampering the decentralized feature of BKCT.
This privacy is especially important in the food sector because of the widespread competition
between the food firms. In such cases, large corporations might prefer the use of private and
permissioned blockchain, instead of a public blockchain. Depending on the design, the
blockchain may be permissioned or permissionless, such design decisions may impact the
operations of blockchain systems.
4.3.2 Security. Reyna et al. (2018) discuss that though integrating IoT devices with BKCT
will deal with the security issues, but at the same time, IoT devices have low computational
resources and storage space available which makes it difficult to process cryptographic
algorithms. Ensuring continuous stability and security has become a challenge in the case of
IoT-integrated blockchain applications. Thus, there is a need for test platforms to be
evaluated in terms of latency, storage and security.
4.3.3 Scalability. Several researchers have reported challenges in the adoption of
blockchain at a wide-scale (Astill et al., 2019; Marinello et al., 2017). The scalability of BKCT is
in the form of large data size, response time and rising costs (Rana et al., 2021). Over the last
few years, BKCT has become popular, and with the rapid adoption of the technology, the
number of transactions in a network is also increasing. However, the block size is limited in
respect to the increasing number of transactions. In addition, with more users and
transactions, a greater number of nodes are needed to process these transactions. This
increases the overall cost of using BKCT. Niknejad et al. (2021) also suggests the inadequate
performance of BKCT when the number of nodes increases. This challenge is more prominent

Product Company Source

Mango Walmart, IBM, Nestle Kamath (2018)

Table 5. Turkey Cargill Inc., Hendrix Genetics Bumblauskas et al. (2020)
List of commercial Chicken Gogochicken, OriginTrail Kamilaris et al. (2019)
enterprises using Beef JD.com, Beefledger Ying et al. (2018)
BKCT in the agrifood Canned pumpkin Nestle and IBM Food Trust Chang et al. (2020)
sector Seafood Bumble Bee Foods, Intel Kshetri (2018)
in the case of integration of BKCT with IoT as IoT networks are known to have a large Application of
number of nodes. Also, the majority of proposed BKCT frameworks have been tested in a BKCT in the
simulated environment, thus extensive research is required in this area.
4.3.4 Lack of regulations. Policy development and regulatory framework is also an
agrifood sector
important factor to consider for the implementation of the blockchain (Pearson et al., 2019;
Zhao et al., 2019). There is a disparity between policy experts and technical experts on the use
of blockchain. Hence, the policy barriers restrict the use of blockchain on a large scale. Also,
there is no set of clear regulations and standards for the implementation of BKCT for AFSM. 3435
Hence, there is an urgent need for introducing regulations and standards for effective
implementation of BKCT for application in AFSM. An elaborate study on the impact of BKCT
on governance needs to be conducted (Hald and Kinra, 2019).
4.3.5 Lack of skills and training. Several developing countries lack the high degree
of computational skills required for blockchain. This technology is relatively new,
it started gaining popularity around 2016, since then several companies and start-ups
have adopted blockchain for their respective supply chains. However, despite the wide
popularity, there is a lack of awareness and limited training available on the use of BKCT
(Zhao et al., 2019). Also, the use of blockchain for the rural sector is still a challenge,
though several start-ups such as 1,000 EcoFarms are working to ease the use of
blockchain for farmers. There is a need for special emphasis on providing aid for training
and technology transfer to the farmers. With considerable awareness about BKCT, it
would be difficult to adopt it with IoT. The challenges discussed in the current literature
are summarized in Table 6.

5. Applying blockchain in food traceability management: case of honey

supply chain
This review identifies some potential research gaps that need the attention of academia and
the food industries. The factors that require immediate attention are the traceability of food
products and transparency in the supply chain. In order to make the producers accountable to
the food safety norms, there is a requirement for tracing the product from origin to its final
stage. Honey is one such food item that is highly vulnerable to food fraud. To build a
traceability architecture, the value chain mapping of the product is done. This requires an
understanding of the various business processes involved in the supply chain. The other
issue that the review identifies is the integration of IoT with BKCT. Thus, in this case of the
honey supply chain, data are collected through IoT devices at different stages in the supply
chain. Finally, the use of BKCT enabled traceability would eliminate the need for
intermediaries in the supply chain. This would ensure better returns to the producers and
improved quality products to the consumers.

Areas Challenges References

Technology Security, scalability, and privacy Zubiaga et al. (2018)

Infrastructure Lack of skills and training Astill et al. (2019), Kamilaris
Limitations in rural areas, e.g. low bandwidth Internet et al. (2019)
Standardization Standards and norms for implementing blockchain are Creydt and Fischer (2019)
currently missing
Performance Increased energy consumption in cases of mining in Papa (2017)
blockchain Table 6.
Social Lack of regulations Kamilaris et al. (2019) Challenges of
institutional blockchain technology
BIJ 5.1 Business processes in honey supply chain
29,10 The various business process provides traceability data at each stage. This section describes
the use of blockchain in the traceability management of honey. Honey as a food item is
gaining popularity as a nutritious food. Therefore, this study considers the honey supply
chain as a use case for applying blockchain for traceability.
5.1.1 Stage 1: Honey production. Production of honey is the first step in the agrifood
traceability process here. IoT devices collect the required data in the business process. The
3436 traceability information may include farmer/beekeeper’s information, date of honey
production, etc. A new transaction can be initiated between the beekeeper and the
processor and creates a record in the blockchain traceability system. The beekeepers store
information such as date, time and weight in the blockchain-based system.
5.1.2 Stage 2: Processing. In most cases, the honey forwarded by the beekeepers/farmers to
the processor is raw honey which is further processed in the processing plant. This stage is
crucial in ensuring the quality and safety of the honey produced. The traceability information
includes processing time, batch transformation, packaging and final tagged product
information. At this stage, the operators store the information in the blockchain-based system
through the scanning of tags.
5.1.3 Stage 3: Transportation. This stage is complex and needs to be undertaken with
caution. The use of IoT sensor devices captures relevant traceability information of
transportation such as truck and driver-related information, location, date and time of transit,
etc. This step is crucial for managers in tracking the journey of the consignment.
5.1.4 Stage 4: Distribution and retail. The honey consignment is transported to the
assigned distributors which are further distributed to individual retail shops. In this, the
traceability information is the details of the distributors and retailers, their respective
locations, date and time of distribution.
5.1.5 Stage 5: Consumption. The information of the sold honey is stored in the blockchain.
This information may consist of the type of honey, brand name, sale time, shelf life, price, etc.
At this final stage, consumers can easily retrieve the history of the product before deciding on
purchasing the honey.

5.2 Architecture design of the blockchain-based honey traceability system

The web-based traceability system is based on a centralized structure that stores all product-
related information. However, the blockchain-based system provides a nontampering
solution with a decentralized database. Such a system is capable of providing an effective
solution for anticounterfeit activities and the quality traceability of the concerned food
product. The proposed architecture in this study consists of the business layer, IoT layer and
blockchain layer.
(1) The business layer consists of all business steps, in this case from honey production
to consumption. Each stakeholder in the supply chain can store and manage the
traceability information. The layer for this study is presented in Figure 4.

Figure 4.
Business layer of
honey supply chain
 (2) The traceability layer consists of information such as quality information of the Application of
product, processing, transport details. Data are recorded through IoT devices such as BKCT in the
RFID tags, barcodes and WSN technology. The sensors collect and transmit
information automatically. The connected devices further communicate with ledgers
agrifood sector
in a blockchain-based system.
(3) The blockchain layer is an important part of the system in facilitating transparency
and security of the honey traceability system. Smart contracts are executable 3437
programs that implement real-time monitoring in blockchain-based systems. It also
allows the retailers and consumers to record the transactions and experience the
entire history of the product. The traceability and blockchain layer are presented in
Figure 5.

6. Implications
6.1 Managerial implications
There are several managerial implications related to the application of BKCT in AFSM. The
primary applications are implementing blockchain-based traceability systems which track
and trace the products in a coordinated manner, ensuring transparent supply chains and
dissemination of information among the participants in the supply chain. In this context
following are the main managerial implications: (1) Blockchain-based application can lead to
establishing consumer trust and improving customer service. The real-time applications
allow taking corrective action such as efficient recall of products. Also, the use of BKCT
promotes the reduction of food losses and the management of inventories. (2) BKCT promotes
food safety, giving way to consumer confidence over the product and competitive advantage

Figure 5.
Traceability and
blockchain layer of
honey supply chain
BIJ over other firms. (3) Advantages of BKCT such as reliability, flexibility, transparency and
29,10 cost reduction are central to industries 4.0 (Stranieri et al., 2021).

6.2 Theoretical implications

Research in the field of application of BKCT in AFSM is limited. The nature of a large number
of studies in this field is the review of empirical studies and theoretical in nature. This owes to
3438 the fact that the technology is relatively new and has gained momentum in the last few years.
In general terms, the role of BKCT in the agrifood sector is presented in a fragmented nature,
giving way to a significant amount of research to explore this topic further. The disruptive
nature of BKCT has been recognized only recently. The awareness regarding the integration
of BKCT with IoT, besides improving transparency and traceability can open up new
application opportunities. In this regard, different avenues of AFSM such as customer
relationship management and value addition process need to be explored in relation to BKCT.
Several authors have described these aspects in a theoretical approach. At the same time,
Upadhyay et al. (2021) have explored agrifood supply sustainability through blockchain and
improving circular economy through BKCT.

7. Future scope
The authors of this present study review the application of BKCT in AFSM, along with
exploring multiple benefits and challenges of the technology. The integration of BKCT with
IoT will help deliver better results for agrifood firms. This research focuses on BKCT which is
based on decentralized and distributed systems, and it promises to deliver better performance
when used in combination with IoT. This would benefit the agrifood firms by providing a
secure and efficient system. Despite the advantages, discussed by researchers, certain
disadvantages such as scalability, security, privacy and lack of regulations have been
discussed in the study. Extensive research in this direction would give an effective tool to
agrifood firms to calculate and improve their performance and management. Other
challenges in the application of BKCT in the agrifood sector such as lack of skills, proper
training to the workforce, storage capacity need to be backed with empirical evidence in the
future. BKCT is a new technology and is in a nascent stage; it currently lacks regulations.
Increased research in this area would lead to better implementation of the technology. It is
important to gauge the effect of technology on agrifood firms at the local and international
levels. This would further help in forming norms or standards related to the use of the
technology. This study uses the methodology of SLR which uses the criteria of citation
analysis followed by content analysis. Although the scope of the article is restricted to citation
reports, considering the H index to select the articles is also a powerful tool to rank the
author’s work, and future studies can use the tool to select the articles.

8. Conclusion
This study demonstrates the various application of BKCT in the agrifood sector. It discusses
the various research studies exhibited in the past, which suggests the various benefits and
barriers of the technology. The advantages of BKCT include traceability, greater
transparency in the supply chain, increased reliability, reduced transaction costs and
faster transactions, elimination of intermediaries and ultimately attaining the larger goal of
reducing the food fraud cases and ensuring food safety. Despite the several advantages,
certain challenges like privacy, security and scalability issues need to be extensively
researched upon. In some cases, the companies are functioning with little knowledge of the
technicalities of the technology and limited expertise of the technology. The lack of
awareness and appropriate training is among the major challenges of BKCT in the agrifood
sector. BKCT is a relatively new technology. The absence of regulations concerning the Application of
implementation of this technology in the agrifood sector is an obstacle that needs a global BKCT in the
perspective. Although this technology is at an early stage, it has immense scope for future
research. Currently, a large number of publications focus on the basic architecture of the
agrifood sector
proposed technology. Several research projects are in the pilot phase; in the coming times, the
focus would shift on the implementation of the technology. Discussion on the challenges in
the implementation of the technology is important for fully utilizing its benefits.
3439
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Corresponding author
Ayushi Srivastava can be contacted at: ayushi.iitdelhi@gmail.com

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