A blockchain fruit traceability solution complying with GS1 standards are recommended to the companies in the agricultural supply chain industry.

80% of end consumers are more open to products that enable traceability information than products without a public traceability policy. Very few consumers will indeed look up the traceability code; however, they still want this option in the list.

For consumers, traceability information represents a guarantee of food safety, but for the whole of agriculture, it's a question of maintaining quality, running the supply chain, and efficient recovery. Its core is information standards for fruits and vegetables, where they originate, and where they are in the supply chain.

The incorporation of GS1 standards in blockchain fruit traceability solutions makes verification easier for businesses and governments. This solution maintains more economical for businesses when exporting to global markets and contributes to the increased product value.

A complete fruit traceability system for businesses, governments, and consumers

Traceability is a business process that allows trading partners to track products as they move from the farm to the table. Each Traceability Partner must be able to identify the product's direct source (supplier) and the direct recipient (customer).

Notably, the top priority and ultimate goal of traceability are to protect the consumer through faster and more accurate identification of the products involved.

Traceability data shall be readily visible to the user within ten seconds, including complete information about the origin, quality, collection, preparation, and storage process to demonstrate that it has no flaws.

In the blockchain fruit traceability system, all information is recorded by the partners in the chain (gardeners, cooperatives, distributors...) to avoid the case that one party may manipulate the data. Since all information is recorded using blockchain technology, data is immutable, which means that information cannot be deleted, modified, or forged.

Incorporating the GS1 Global Traceability Standard, the system identifies essential pieces of information that must be collected, recorded, and shared to ensure traceability. This standard applies to companies of all sizes and geography.

Description of GS1 standards in a blockchain fruit traceability 

A complete fruit traceability solution should consist of three systems: the batch/product identification and coding system, a traceability information management system, and related supporting hardware. Enterprises need to operate these three systems well to ensure control of information binding, information collection, and use.

Also, businesses should pay attention to critical events in the life cycle of a product in the fruit supply chain, including:

Integration and decomposition of the supply chain logistics chain
Logistic unit conversion before and after commercial fruit handling during the processing phase
Disruption and asynchronism of the logistics flow and the flow of information between different entities along the supply chain.

These events will take place and can be repeated throughout the life of the product, from the field until it reaches the consumer.

Below is a basic description of the fruit traceability design in the supply chain, which is compatible with the GS1 coding system:

Determine the logistic lot/unit: The enterprise determines the fruit lot number, harvest lot number, the circulation code of the package, and the traceability code based on GS1 system encoding standards.
Labeling design: Designing an appropriate labeling system to bind traceability information to the respective logistics unit is an essential step towards achieving full traceability. For most fruits, it is difficult to identify individual fruits, so the smallest package of fruit will be the unit of traceability. Companies should store containers of fruit from the same harvest lot in pallets before processing to avoid mixing during post-harvest commercialization; also the fruit code number of a processing lot must be similar to the harvest lot.
Barcode design: Fruit should have the package code number and traceability label which are designed with corresponding barcode and QR code complying with regulations and encoding schemes.
Design information system: The Traceability Information Management System is developed according to the different roles of different units in the supply chain, mainly divided into five parts: orchard module, fruit processing and distribution center module, supermarket module, management module, and information search module.

This solution allows the traceability of fruit throughout the supply chain with complex procedures. However, this solution is still in the early stages, the traceability information needs to be more standardized, and the accuracy of traceability still needs to be improved over time.

Conclusion

Exporting fruit products to the global market often requires involved parties many years of negotiations and a bunch of compliance regulations to ensure quality and legal procedures. The road to success will not be easy, but with blockchain fruit traceability, businesses in the fruit import and export chain are optimistic.

Entering the traceability solutions market, for fruit products, akaChain sees positive signs of growth. According to the Global Market report, the fruit & vegetable market is estimated to reach a CAGR of 7.1%, up from $265.6 billion to $373.5 billion in the period 2017-2020.

Our agricultural traceability solution will help supply chain businesses solve the critical problem of their fruit path to the world. The blockchain's ability to safely and securely share and verify information will help the units in the chain connect more easily. Documented information about procedures and processes helps define responsibilities more clearly.

In particular, with the built-in SDKs, traceability in agriculture will also help businesses shorten the time to bring products to consumers.

Learn more about the traceability solution on the blockchain, leave your contact information, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

About akaChain

akaChain is backed by FPT Software, a globally leading technology, and IT services provider. It is an end-to-end, permissioned, multi-chain network based on the Hyperledger Fabric. Since its Establishment in September 2018, akaChain’s product has assisted many enterprises, from SMEs to Fortune 500 firms, to transform with distributed ledger technology. The company provides a broad range of permissioned blockchain-based products and services in multiple sectors, including retail, supply chain, banking and finance, insurance, shopping mall management, etc. to transform with its distributed ledger technology. For more information, please visit https://blog.akachain.io/.

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Website: https://akachain.io
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