A Milk Blockchain-Enabled Supply Chain: Evidence From Leading Italian Farms

Abstract

Blockchain is proven to support businesses in traceability, data reliability, and data retrieval in all the steps of the supply chain, but still has limited use in the food sector. Through the EU-Horizon 2020-backed example of an Italian regional milk value chain, the chapter describes a real case toward the implementation of such technology in the food sector for the benefit of multiple stakeholders. The case sheds light on the gathering of information concerning the milk production through a network of advanced internet of things sensors, the output of which is employed both for data-driven decision-making and for information certification through blockchain. This trustable and certified information could be shared and employed by other stakeholders to get informed about the status of the production process and, in turn, to potentially deliver an enlarged set of details about the product, progressively up to the end consumers, with implications of technology adoption for food tech-firms and on related impacts on a circular economy.