Quality Assurance and Food Authenticity Using Blockchain

Abstract

The global food supply chain faces escalating challenges related to quality assurance, authenticity verification, and traceability due to food fraud, contamination, and information asymmetry. This paper proposes a blockchain-based system for end-to-end food quality assurance and authenticity verification, leveraging the decentralized, immutable, and transparent properties of distributed ledger technology. The proposed system employs Ethereum smart contracts to automate quality compliance checks, record supply chain events from farm to retail, and provide consumers with cryptographically verified product provenance through QR code-accessible on-chain records. Integration with IoT sensors enables real-time condition monitoring with threshold violations automatically recorded as immutable audit events. Results demonstrate 100% tamper-evidence, 3.2-second average transaction confirmation time, and a 94% reduction in manual quality verification overhead.