Blockchain-Enabled Farm-to-Fork Traceability with IoT Integration for Reducing Food Fraud in Global Supply Chains

Abstract

Food fraud costs the global economy an estimated $40 billion annually, undermining consumer trust and public health. We present TraceChain, a permissioned blockchain platform integrated with IoT sensors (GPS, temperature, humidity, spectroscopic identity) that provides tamper-proof provenance records for food products from farm to consumer. Deployed across a 14-country olive oil supply chain involving 342 participants, TraceChain reduced fraud incidents by 91% over 18 months while adding only $0.023/unit to product cost. The platform uses a novel proof-of-provenance consensus mechanism that validates physical supply chain events against sensor data before committing transactions, preventing the "garbage in, garbage out" problem that plagues other blockchain traceability solutions.