Blockchain in the food supply chain. Many talk about it and often carelessly, as seen. Here instead is the Bari prototype on the supply chain of Milk.
Blockchain in the food supply chain. Why?
One survives everything, except hunger. This is why food fraud is lost in the history of civilizations and remains difficult to face. It is no coincidence that organized crime in Europe today stains itself more with the blood of food of animal origin than human blood.
Italy is at the forefront in combating such criminal activities, thanks to the solid experience of our judicial police forces. It is rare that large-scale frauds escape our investigators, but this does not deter criminals (often suited and booted) from committing others.
Europe instead – while being the planet's leading platform in the trade of agri-food products – does nothing concrete to tackle the ‘food fraud’. Beyond the false promises of a useless Commissioner and the creation of a cultural center.
Crime, moreover can only be prevented with clear rules, deterrent penalties, effective investigations, and efficient judicial procedures. The guidelines for the prevention of fraud in quality management systems, although commendable, are not enough.
The Blockchain – as an independent system guaranteeing the traceability of material flows (raw materials, consumables, goods, packaging) and operational ones – can therefore have its reason. Like a security door instead of a wooden gate, it can make it harder for malicious actors to gain access. At least.
Blockchain in the food supply chain. How?
Information technology continues to show its advantages. In daily life as well as in the recording and monitoring of process phases, with quick access to data and security in their storage.
Distributed Ledger Technology (Distributed Ledger Technology), better known as Blockchain, arises from the need to define a secure IT tool that automates the acquisition and recording of information in the processes involved in the supply chain. Whether it is bitcoin or yogurt jars, the concept is the same. Except that it must adapt to the economies of the various systems.
The Blockchain distinguishes itself, compared to other protocols, in several aspects:
– information security, entrusted to the distribution of data across separate and independent blocks, for collection and validation purposes,
– data incorruptibility, which derives from the impossibility of retroactively modifying them without altering their identification codes,
– transparency, inherent in the very logic of an open and distributed ledger.
Blockchain in the milk supply chain, the Bari prototype
CyberSecurity is a Bari company operating in the cybersecurity sector. One among the first software houses to have invested in DLT technology, CyberSecurity has verified the potential effectiveness and usefulness of Blockchain to ensure traceability in the milk supply chain.
Thus was born the prototype MVP (Milk Verification Project), extraordinarily relevant in a period where food fraud in the dairy supply chain is commonplace. Although still unpunished today. Just think, right in Puglia, of the fake ‘Milk slices, Masseria milk’. Rather than the fake ‘Piedmontese Alpine milk’, which happens to come from the same industrial group (Inalpi).
The IoT technologies (Internet of Things) – those capable of interconnecting devices located in different places, which are also part of the CyberSecurity prototype – also allow real-time updates. Providing data accessible to all users participating in the network.
The developed prototype in Bari has all the characteristics to innovate information in the milk supply chain, guaranteeing information that far exceeds – also in terms of reliability – the formal requirements established in the so-called milk origin decree. Which, as has been seen, is also illegitimate because it was not notified to the European Commission.
It remains therefore to be asked why such a prototype is not adopted and applied as soon as possible by those companies, in the production and distribution of dairy products, that intend to distinguish themselves in the seriousness of their protocols to guarantee the effective integrity of the supply chain Made in Italy. An investment in trust, which the market will certainly recognize and enhance.
Dario Dongo
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT – Food Times) and Égalité.
