Digital Food Product Traceability: Using Blockchain in the International Commerce

Food products are one of most important elements in the international commerce. They are also one of the most regulated markets, both at national and international level. The potential damage that inadequate food products may cause in the economy, public health or natural environment of any country turns them into a very controlled commercial flow. However, methodologies, processes and instruments to apply these controls and trace the flow of food products through the several countries and states they can pass, are very complex and inefficient. Cultural and administrate problems, language conflicts or lost documents are only some of the main issues future digital food technologies should address. Therefore, in this paper it is proposed a traceability system for food products in the international commerce, based on Blockchain networks and RFID tags. Using REST interfaces, NoSQL databases and Java-Script code it is implemented a distributed solution to collect, sign and store trustworthy information about the food product flow. A security system is also deployed to guarantee the fault-resilience and the access only by authorized users to the system. A first implementation of the proposed system is also described in order to validate the described solution.