Chiaraluce et al.

Agricultural and Food

Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6
[Link] Economics

REVIEW Open Access

Exploring the role of blockchain technology

in modern high‑value food supply chains: global
trends and future research directions
Giulia Chiaraluce1, Deborah Bentivoglio1* , Adele Finco1, Mariantonietta Fiore2, Francesco Contò2 and
Antonino Galati3

*Correspondence:
[Link]@[Link] Abstract
1
Department of Agricultural, Trust, safety, and quality are among the most important factors in the agri-food supply
Food and Environmental chains. Traceability is a powerful tool to ensure them, but implementing a transparent
Sciences, Università Politecnica and effective system is a complex operation. As a result, innovative systems, like block-
Delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche,
10, 60131 Ancona, Italy chain, could be introduced. Although research on its impacts in the agri-food is recent,
2
Department of Economics, the literature appears fragmented. The objective is to investigate the studied aspects
University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy of the blockchain adoption in agri-food, with the purpose of retrieving meaningful
3
Department of Agricultural,
Food and Forest Sciences, considerations about the current state of the art about strategic high-value supply
University of Palermo, Palermo, chains, such as wine and olive oil, particularly subjected to fraudulent behaviors. A pro-
Italy ductivity measurement was applied to retrieve the evolution of the number of docu-
ments through the years, the most productive countries, the sources, the research
areas, and the most significant papers in terms of number of citations received. To
understand the research trends, a co-occurrence analysis was employed. Results show
that most of the existing studies focus on the role of blockchain in the resolution
of some critical issues as food safety and frauds. While wine is currently an emerging
sector in which this approach can be implemented, olive oil still needs more atten-
tion. In both cases, blockchain could potentially help to support the profitability
and sustainability of the production. The research underlines the importance of focus-
ing on the environmental and social dimension of the blockchain phenomenon
and the use of technology to improve the efficiency of agri-food chains and reduce
waste and resource use.
Keywords: Traceability, Transparency, Agri-food, Bibliometric review, Wine and olive
oil, Digitalization

Introduction
Transparency is a prerequisite in today’s modern food supply chain (FSC). Transparency
helps reduce information asymmetry among stakeholders and allows a relationship of
trust to be established between the company and consumers, consequently strength-
ening brand reputation and organizational legitimacy in the social system (Fiore 2016;
Carter and Rogers 2008). As a result of a succession of scandals (the Irish pork crisis,
BSE, and dioxins to name a few) and food frauds, it is necessary to redefine effective

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Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 2 of 22

traceability systems capable of satisfying the growing consumer demand for safe and
quality products (Stranieri et al. 2021; Saberi et al. 2019; Van Rijswijk and Frewer 2012).
However, defining and implementing a transparent and effective traceability system for
the FSC is a complex operation, mainly due to its many operatives and to the lack of
two-way information flows between them (Astill et al. 2019). In addition, various exist-
ing traceability systems that guarantee information operate only regarding some aspects
or are accessible only to some members of the supply chain (Galati et al. 2021; Strani-
eri et al. 2021). These barriers have led the food producers and various FSC operators
to develop new skills and solutions to guarantee effective information flow and a com-
pletely transparent process. In this context, the adoption of innovative technologi-
cal solutions, including blockchain technology (BCT), has the potential to ensure the
transparency and verifiability of the entire process by providing final consumers with
additional guarantees regarding the quality and safety of the purchased products (Konfo
et al. 2023; Bastian and Zentes 2013). BCT can be understood as a digital ledger that
uses the internet to release a distributed and secure database model along the supply
chain; each participant in BCT verifies and confirms the data records entered by other
members through an established consensus protocol (Raikwar et al. 2019; Smith et al.
2016). The decentralized and distributed ledger logs transactions in chronological order
to create permanent and tamper-proof records (Gligor et al. 2022), ensuring a high level
of transparency for all transactions (Nakamoto 2008). The adoption of BCT in the food
chain, in line with the operating principles of technology, makes it possible for all opera-
tors to obtain permission to access the block database; thus, they have reliable data on
the origin and state of foods in carrying out their transactions.
Over recent years, some studies have explored the potential of BCT in the FSC. These
have emphasized how implementing technology enhances transparency, ensuring bet-
ter accessibility, availability, and sharing information relating to different phases of
the supply chain (Dal Mas et al. 2023; Marchesi et al. 2022; Gligor et al. 2022; Strani-
eri et al. 2021). The transparency and verifiability of information on various processes
eliminate the risk of opportunistic behavior among supply chain operators, bearing the
possibility of reducing food counterfeit and adulteration (Tiscini et al. 2020; Astill et al.
2019). By its intrinsic characteristics, blockchain has the potentiality to increase con-
fidence in the information provided to consumer, in terms of food safety, traceability,
and transparency (Martínez-Castañeda and Feijoo 2023). Furthermore, the success of
BCT implementation is linked to a better understanding of the appropriate technologi-
cal solution, the opportunities to integrate other IoT technologies, and the type of data
to be shared (Compagnucci et al. 2022; Saurabh and Dey 2021). In addition, as several
authors as emphasized, BCT could help improve the sustainability of the production by
operating on tracking food waste production, one of the main issues in reaching a cir-
cular economy (Li et al. 2023; Pakseresht et al. 2023, 2022; Yontar 2023; Hassoun et al.
2022). Notwithstanding the increasing interest, the literature about this phenomenon is
not consistent, focusing only on certain potentialities of this technology, and not clarify-
ing the categories of research area that are studied. Therefore, the potential advantage
for agribusiness requires further conceptual and holistic investigations. In this regard,
it is essential for innovation-oriented practitioners to clarify the role that BCT can
play in food chains, especially those with high added value, and whether this emerging
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 3 of 22

technology can contribute to sustainability. Indeed, nowadays, comprehensive stud-

ies about high-value chains are missing. Given the growing interest in the adoption of
BCT in the food supply chain and considering the above-mentioned gaps, the present
study aims to answer the following research questions: “Which aspects of the adoption
of BCT in the agri-food chain have been studied? Which implications of BCT have been
the focus of the economic literature? To what extent does the literature focus on stra-
tegic supply chains, such as wine and olive oil, which are more exposed to food fraud?
What are the possible implications of the adoption of BCT for the operators of these two
supply chains?” For the scope of the study, a productivity measurement was applied. To
understand the research themes in BCT applications in the food sector, a bibliometric
tool, namely co-occurrence analysis, was employed. The reminder of the paper is organ-
ized as follows. “Methodology” Section introduces the adopted methodology, based on
a productivity measurement and a bibliometric analysis. “Results and discussion” Sec-
tion shows and discusses the main results of the two methodological approaches. Finally,
Sect. "Conclusions and future research directions" draws the conclusions about BCT
adoption in the agri-food sector and high-value chains and presents the conclusions and
the future research directions.

Methodology
The research was carried out in two different databases, Scopus and Web of Science
(WoS), to expand the range of eligible documents. The two platforms were chosen as
they are recognized as covering a notable range of high-ranking journals and peer-
reviewed articles of high quality (Barbosa 2021; Niknejad et al. 2021; Rejeb et al. 2021a).
First, an appropriate sequence of keywords, based on the research objectives, was care-
fully selected. As the research topic is new, the search string was kept as generic as pos-
sible, to try to include all the published works. One group of words used referred to the
technology, while the other concerned the agri-food sector. For this purpose, the search
string using Boolean operators ((blockchain OR “block chain”) AND (agr* OR food))
was applied for title, abstract, and keywords to examine the structure and substance of
BCT in food and agriculture literature. Data collection was performed for each data-
base separately, using the same methodological criteria, on November 2, 2022. The ini-
tial number of documents was 4,653, to which a series of filters was applied. Papers were
screened and kept according to the type of publication (article, review, and book chap-
ter), the language (English), the availability of the full text, and the consistency with the
objectives of the study (eligible documents). Finally, overlaps between the two databases
were checked and maintained only once. To avoid subjective decisions, four authors per-
formed the screening, keeping 79 documents from Scopus and 400 from WoS. Since this
moment, the two databases have been considered as one (November 11, 2022) (Fig. 1)
(Agnusdei and Coluccia 2022; Chiaraluce et al. 2021).
For the scope of the study, a productivity measurement was applied to retrieve the
evolution of the number of documents through the years, the most productive coun-
tries, the publishing sources, the research areas, and the most significant papers in
terms of number of citations received (according to the two chosen databases). A
productivity measure is a meaningful tool to assess the current position of a spe-
cific theme in literature, as well as its research trends and evolution over time, to
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 4 of 22

Fig. 1 Document selection explanation based on the PRISMA methodology

contextualize a specific topic. To understand the research themes in BCT applications

in the food sector, a bibliometric tool, namely co-occurrence analysis, was employed.
Bibliometric reviews are not new instruments for exploring BCT adoption in the agri-
food sector (Mohapatra et al. 2023; Abideen et al. 2021; Lwesya and Achanta 2022;
Wamba and Queiroz 2020). Co-occurrence was studied through VOSviewer software
(1.6.18). VOSviewer is an open-access tool that can be used to create, visualize, and
explore maps based on any type of data. The map is a visual depiction of the subject
showing the relation among the items in the field. In the network visualization, circles
represent the items, grouped in clusters. Clusters are non-overlapping; thus, an item
may belong to only one cluster (Van Eck and Waltman 2022). Maps normally guide
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 5 of 22

the analysis, but field expertise is still required for proper interpretation (Heersmink
et al. 2011).

Results and discussion

Publication years
Figure 2 presents the evolution of the number of published papers about BCT applica-
tions in FSC over the years, from 2017 to 2022. A growing trend, with an exponential
increase, is recognized, revealing a consistent raise in interest of scholars in this field.
Blockchain was introduced in 2008 for the bitcoin system; however, it is currently
under study for the implications in different contexts like finance and banking, industry
4.0, health system, and tourism (Ozdemir et al. 2020; Alladi et al. 2019; McGhin et al.
2019; Guo and Liang 2016). In recent years, the attention moved also toward the agri-
cultural and food sector, with several authors starting to investigate how this innova-
tive group of technologies could solve some problems of the supply chain, namely food
safety, traceability issues, and frauds (Singh and Sharma 2023; Galati et al. 2021; Demes-
tichas et al. 2020; Casado-Vara et al. 2018). When it started in 2017, the publications
focused on ICT-applications for smart agriculture (Gu et al. 2017; Lin et al. 2017) and
for supporting cooperatives for a global commonwealth (Manski 2017). An increase of
more than 300% of the available documents took place between 2019 and 2022. The
most recent papers focus on the specific application of BCT for traceability. Such papers
demonstrate its potential for providing more transparency, veracity, and trust in food
information (Feng et al. 2020; Galvez et al. 2018; Kamath 2018; Lin et al. 2018). There is
a continuous process of implementation of traceability systems. Indeed, since it became
mandatory for the food supply chain by EU Regulation 178/2002 (“General Food Law”),
companies are motivated to improve the process of track and trace not only to comply
with compulsory regulations, international standards, and certifications requirements,
but also to implement marketing strategies and programs. The latter aims to guarantee

Fig. 2 Evolution of the number of published papers about BCT applications in agri-food indexed in Scopus
and WoS. *Papers published as of December 2022
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 6 of 22

the origin, identity, and quality of a product, and necessarily to react against the dif-
fusion of sanitary outbreaks with efficient methods (Dabbene et al. 2014). Its intrinsic
characteristics (immutability, transparency, distribution, decentralization) put the BCT
in a privileged position as the future standard for a safe traceability system. Nonetheless,
to become the common paradigm, global agreement on data standards and governance
should be realized, as well as key technical issues, like scalability and privacy mecha-
nism, to protect the users’ data (Yang et al. 2023; Pearson et al. 2019).

Publications categorized by geography

Considering the number of publications per country, China gains the top position in
the list, with 150 documents, followed by a substantial gap from India (80) and the UK
(57). Even if countries like Italy and Spain devote a particular attention to the protec-
tion of their agricultural system and food production, the developing countries are the
ones focusing more on innovation and research in agri-food, as reported by Niknejad
and colleagues (2021). This can be explained by the fact that in those countries, where it
is often difficult to implement efficient public policies, the use of the blockchain in agri-
cultural supply chain, land registries and financial services can help the sector to achieve
food security and rural development goals and promote sustainability (Rana et al. 2021).
Moreover, to be competitive on a well-established global food market, developing econ-
omies need to upgrade their food supply chain using digital technologies to guaran-
tee high-quality production and the compliance with business partners’ legislation, to
ensure a fair and competitive trade (Hasan et al. 2023).

Publishing sources
Considering the top ten journals with the highest number of published documents in
BCT applications in the FSC, altogether these sources published 156 articles, represent-
ing 33% of the 479 papers in the database. In the top spots, sustainability is the most pre-
sent with 36 publications, followed by IEEE Access (33), Journal of Cleaner Production
(25), and Foods (10). The distribution of articles indicates that BCT research has been
published in a wide range of top-tier journals, whose diversity reflects its interdiscipli-
nary nature and the versatility of its applications in the FSC. It should be observed that,
if we search in literature a topic that, by its nature, is predominantly engineering as BCT,
the first source of information is a miscellaneous journal like Sustainability. IEEE Access,
a high-tier journal dedicated to advancing technology, is in the second position only.
This can be explained by the fact that, due to the choice of the authors, papers of a purely
engineering nature, focused on the characteristics and technical specs of blockchain and
not on its application in agri-food, were deliberately removed during the filtering pro-
cess, as they were not considered relevant for the analysis.

Main research areas

In this aspect, the engineering nature of the topic emerged: Computer Science (160
papers), Engineering (159), and Telecommunications (64) are among the most exploited
fields of study according to Scopus and WoS classification. Nevertheless, the multidisci-
plinary approach to this topic is further underlined by the fact that Business, Manage-
ment and Accounting (90), and Environmental Sciences (87) are also among the research
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 7 of 22

areas that are dealt with in the papers. The environmental issue is quite controversial:
even if blockchain is mostly considered a potential positive contribution to sustainable
development goals (Parmentola et al. 2022), the mechanism of proof of work is gener-
ally judged to be high-energy demanding, thus being not environmentally sustainable.
The current opinion optimistically praises the potential societal, environmental, and
economic benefits behind this technology; however, the background is not necessarily
positive, and in-depth study is still required to cope with this problem (Schinckus 2020).
In addition, the implementation of a BCT system for different purposes (smart farming
and traceability above all) requires investments, in which the costs depend on the type
of chosen blockchain (public or private, permissioned or permissionless, consortium
blockchain), the number of nodes, the amount of data stored. The contribution of the
economics studies is essential to guarantee the economic sustainability of the technol-
ogy in the long term and to attract potentially interested stakeholders. Entrepreneurs
need to assess the increase in the costs of their production, as well as the compliance
with the current policies about data treatment and food production; consumers require
more information about this technology, if it affects the products they purchase in terms
of quality and safety, and if it implies a defensible increased cost.

Methods and most cited papers

Dealing with a substantial database allowed to investigate the methodologies mostly
employed in literature when referring to BCT applications in the FSC. Of the 479 docu-
ments, 79 are reviews. Conceptual articles represent the most common studies of the
400 other documents, and they are used to create new knowledge not derived from data
in the traditional sense, but rather build on theories and concepts that are developed
and tested through empirical research (Jaakkola 2020), proposing theoretical imple-
mentation of BCT in different supply chains. These studies are followed by empirical
research based on the case study method, to explore the adoption’s barriers and driv-
ers, as well as advantages and disadvantages, of the technology in the FSC. Among the
quantitative methods, it is notable that also consumer analysis is exploited to understand
the behavior toward the technology and the willingness to pay for products embedded
with the BCT characteristics. As business and management are among the most inves-
tigated research areas, several management tools are present in the considered litera-
ture, such as Multi-Criteria Analysis, ISM-DEMATEL models, structural equation and
finance modeling, SWOT analysis, Delphi methodology, Stackelberg, and other kinds of
business games. Beyond the methods, to address the research, it is essential to identify
the papers considered as milestones for the topic. This can be done by searching for the
most cited articles in the database. Table 1 presents the ten most cited papers according
to the number of citations considered by both Scopus and WoS. The table also reports
the methodology employed in the studies.
Among the most cited papers, five of them are reviews discussing BCT appli-
cations in the FSC. This is linked to the fact that a literature review is a relevant
instrument for tracking the state of the art on specific subjects, helping to provide
an overview of areas in which the research is disparate and interdisciplinary, syn-
thesizing research findings to show evidence and to uncover areas in which more
research is required (Snyder 2019). In particular, these reviews are focused mainly
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 8 of 22

Table 1 Top 10 cited papers

Title Author(s) Publication year Citations* Methodology
Scopus WoS

The rise of blockchain Kamilaris et al 2019 347 270 Review

technology in agriculture
and food supply chains
Future challenges on the Galvez et al 2018 339 262 Review
use of blockchain for food
traceability analysis
Modeling the blockchain Kamble et al 2020b 290 247 ISM—DEMATEL decision-
enabled traceability in making techniques
agriculture supply chain
Achieving sustainable per- Kamble et al 2020a 269 237 Systematic Literature
formance in a data-driven Review
agriculture supply chain:
A review for research and
applications
Blockchain technology Kouhizadeh et al 2021 246 219 DEMATEL
and the sustainable supply
chain: Theoretically explor-
ing adoption barriers
Blockchain-Based Soybean Salah et al 2019 250 190 Ethereum blockchain and
Traceability in Agricultural smart contracts proposal
Supply Chain
Blockchain in Logistics Perboli et al 2018 244 188 GUEST methodology
and Supply Chain: A Lean
Approach for Designing
Real-World Use Cases
Boundary conditions for Behnke & Janssen 2020 239 184 Multiple case study (inter-
traceability in food supply view protocol)
chains using blockchain
technology
Blockchain technology Zhao et al 2019 224 191 Systematic Literature
in agri-food value chain Network Analysis
management: A synthesis
of applications, challenges
and future research direc-
tions
Blockchain technology in Dutta et al 2020 217 189 Systematic Literature
supply chain operations: Review
Applications, challenges
and research opportunities
*November 2022

on the potentialities offered by the BCT adoption both generally and with specific
reference to the traceability, transparency, and data security in the FSC. Kamilaris
and colleagues (2019) examine and present the impact of BCT in the agri-food sec-
tor, projects, and initiatives in progress (powered by Walmart, IBM, Nestlè), and
debate about implications, challenges, and potentialities of this emerging technol-
ogy. The reluctance of small and medium enterprises toward the application of
innovative technologies, the absence of ad hoc policies, privacy issues, and costs of
implementation are among the identified barriers. By looking at the potentialities of
the application, Kamble et al. (2020a) investigate the state of the art on the linkage
between a data-driven FSC and sustainable performances, to develop an application
framework useful for the practitioners to plan their investments and to innovate the
sector. Their findings reveal that the managers, to accomplish sustainable objectives,
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 9 of 22

to improve transparency, and to track food products in the supply chain, may use
blockchain thus achieving a high level of integration. In the work of Zhao and co-
authors (2019), the systematic literature network analysis revealed that hurdles like
storage capacity and scalability, privacy leakage, high cost and regulation prob-
lem, and lack of skills still need to be faced. Nonetheless, BCT could be adopted
to improve traceability, information security, manufacturing, and sustainable water
management in the agri-food value chain. These findings were reiterated by Dutta
and co-authors (2020) which reveal that Distributed Ledger Technologies, as block-
chain, could be used to securely link all the actors of the entire food chain, from
farm to fork, contributing to the elimination of food adulteration, ensuring high
resolution of food safety issues, improving the management of quality issues, and
increasing the sustainability. Galvez et al. (2018) discuss the possibility to implement
an efficient traceability system against food frauds using blockchain. Even though
this technology seems promising, some limits need to be considered in this case
as well, like the assurance that the data uploaded are correct, the overall costs, and
what kind of data should be publicized.
By relying on data coming from literature review analysis, the authors adopt the
DEMATEL methodology in two cases. Combining DEMATEL with ISM, Kamble
et al. (2020b) identify thirteen enablers for the application of BCT in the FSC, stud-
ying the complex causal relationships between them. Their outcomes suggest that
traceability was the most significant reason for BCT implementation in the FSC,
followed by auditability, immutability, and origin. Kouhizadeh et al. (2021), on the
contrary, exploit DEMATEL to investigate the barriers for adopting BCT for a sus-
tainable supply chain, their interrelationships, and predominance. They conclude
that technological barriers are the most critical and need specific measurements to
be overcome.
The definition of a BCT system is the scope of the work by Perboli et al. (2018)
and Salah et al. (2019). In the first study, the authors apply the GUEST methodology
to design the use-case related to an e-commerce food retailer located in Europe, to
show the critical aspects of implementing a BCT system. Their findings point out
that this technology involves a significant amount of implementation costs, par-
ticularly for small- and medium-sized enterprises, but the benefits could result in
increased sales, primarily driven by reduced counterfeiting and improved customer
confidence. The second work proposes a blockchain-based solution and framework
for traceability and visibility in the soybean supply chain, using Ethereum and smart
contracts. The authors provide details, aspects, and interactions about the system
architecture and design, including the participation entities, sequence diagrams, and
implementation algorithms. This study is one of the first examples of BCT imple-
mentation in a specific FSC, as the literature on food and agriculture is scant and
just started to gain popularity. Lastly, using a multiple case study approach, Behnke
and Janssen (2020) identify eighteen boundary conditions, categorized in business,
regulation, quality, and traceability classes, for sharing assurance information to
improve traceability, investigating four cases in the FSC. Before the employment of
blockchain, organizational changes are needed, and traceability processes and inter-
faces, having a joint platform and independent governance, should be standardized.
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 10 of 22

Co‑occurrences network
A co-occurrence network analyzes the most frequent keywords and the relationships
between them, providing a deeper insight into the main research topics to understand
the transition and trend of research in a specific scientific field (Rejeb et al. 2021b). In
Fig. 3, the terms occurring at least three times were considered. A total of 210 words
were identified and 9 clusters were formed. The results shown in the figure represent
only the networked items.
Apart from “blockchain” (occurred 1642 times), the most commonly occurring items
are “traceability” (925), “management” (810), “technology” (678), “supply chain” (625),
“agriculture” (493) “sustainability” (364) and “food safety” (239). From the network, it
is notable that the concept of BCT applied to the FSC is predominantly linked to the
implementation of the technology as an innovative track and trace system. Looking at
different colored clusters, it is possible to identify some well-defined research fields:

i. “Consumer cluster”: characterized by the red color, this group of words determine
the benefits that a consumer is searching for when hearing about BCT for food
products. Trust, authenticity, safety, transparency, and quality are the most impor-
tant aspects that a blockchain should bring if used. For this reason, “fraud” is also
present. However, even if consumers are searching more and more for food qual-
ity and guarantee of origin, the price of products is still a crucial factor (European
Commission, 2012). In this sense, “willingness to pay” is also included in the clus-
ter, as it is important to understand if the consumer is willing to pay a premium
price for the embedded characteristics of a BCT. The final price is determined by
the cost of implementation of the technology, and Longo et al. (2020) report that
the benefits of a blockchain-based supply chain can be realized with a minimal
impact on the product’s consumer price. Among the most investigated products,

Fig. 3 Network visualization of the co-occurrence items (Minimum number of occurrences of a keyword: 3)
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 11 of 22

meat and fresh fruit stand out, the former because of the increasing attention to
foodborne pathogens and safety (Ren et al. 2022). On the other hand, the current
fresh fruit supply cycle is considered lengthy and inefficient, leading to continuous
deterioration of quality and the rise of safety hazards (Zhang et al. 2022). Block-
chain could be used to upgrade different supply chains through a high level of inte-
gration of information and communication technologies, improving production
and operational processes in the agri-food sector, streamlining decision-making,
production cycles, and transport times (González-Puetate et al. 2022).
ii. “Blue cluster”: named so for the presence of “aquaculture” and “seafood.” Fish is
among the most consumed food products globally (FAO 2022), but the worldwide
trade is facing challenges of invasion of fraudulent and substandard products in
the entire supply chain (Korneyko et al. 2019). Moreover, the aquaculture sector
is constantly increasing, because of the continued depletion of wild fish stocks,
requiring continuing innovation to enable sustainability (Rowan 2022). In this
framework, BCT can be used for transportation, handling and storage, tamper-
proof checks, and product history among others, to ensure safety and traceabil-
ity of such susceptible agricultural products (Callinan et al. 2022). Implementing a
BCT system in the fish sector entails the necessity of digitizing and automatizing
the supply chain; in this sense, the use of “smart contract” is necessary to automate
the data processing and reduce the risk of errors during the transactions (Hang
et al. 2020). Smart contracts can be defined as protocols confirming that an agree-
ment between the transacting parties is traceable, automatically, and irreversibly
executed by a pre-written code in a blockchain without the verification and inter-
vention of a third party. In this way, the execution is resilient to any intervention,
making it easier, more effective, and less expensive to accomplish (Said et al. 2022).
In the fish supply chain, this tool could be exploited to increase the transparency
of the value chain, record data from IoT sensors to continuously monitor the stor-
age temperature, improve the communication and the coordination between the
parties involved. The permanent registration of the product will thereby provide
its history of traceability information, from fishing or production until consump-
tion, improving the safety and quality of the seafood using a trusted mechanism
(Patro et al. 2022; Tsolakis et al. 2021; Cruz and da Cruz, 2020). Inside this clus-
ter, there is also “consortium blockchain.” Differently from the public and private
environment, in consortium blockchains the consensus process is controlled by a
preselected set of nodes, and the right to read the blockchain may be public or
restricted to the participants. To serve such a purpose, consortium blockchains are
usually deployed in environments that consist of multiple organization networks
often interconnected by the internet. These blockchains may be considered par-
tially decentralized, emerging as an interesting architecture concept that benefits
from the transactions’ efficiency and privacy of private blockchains, while lever-
aging the decentralized governance of public blockchains (Dib et al. 2018). They
could be successfully implemented in the food system to improve the security and
privacy of the transaction, while maximizing profit at low computational cost (Mao
et al. 2019).
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 12 of 22

iii. “Smart farming cluster”: inside the cluster, marked by the green color, the concept
of precision agriculture is linked to “data integrity,” “industry 4.0,” “machine learn-
ing,” “policy,” and “privacy.” BCT could be a useful resource to foster precision agri-
culture techniques. This innovative system utilizes satellite technology, geographi-
cal information system, and remote sensing to enhance all functions and services
of the agriculture sector, relying upon apps, smart sensors, drones, cloud comput-
ing, artificial intelligence, and internet of things. Based on these technologies, it
becomes possible to process and access real-time data about the soil, water, crops,
animals, and weather conditions (Anand 2021). Blockchain could bring a variety
of benefits and support in several applications in precision agriculture, like supply
chain monitoring and tracking, finance management, data storage, assurance, and
security (Chatterjee and Singh 2023; Torky and Hassanein 2020). A smart farm-
ing BCT-based technology provides farmers with instant agricultural data, stores
the data only after a thorough check on its integrity, and prevents data from being
tampered once stored. Usage of blockchain in precision agriculture can reduce the
uncertainty of the output by increasing its predictability and the profit, while also
reducing resource wastage (Bodkhe et al. 2022; Krasteva et al. 2021; Vangala et al.
2021). However, concerns about the implementation of BCT in smart farming
involve the privacy of users and data, the scalability, the cost of investment, lack of
knowledge, and the absence of dedicated policies and regulations (Liu et al. 2021).

Blockchain applications in the wine supply chain

One of the objectives of producing a bibliometric map was to highlight if high-value
products are explored as possible fields of adoption of BCT. The co-occurrence analysis
included “wine” in the list of relevant keywords. It belongs to the purple cluster with
“certification,” “coffee,” “digitalization,” “innovation,” and “sustainability.” The presence of
wine highlights the fact that is currently a hot topic in the research about BCT in agri-
food. The word is also connected to other clusters marked by green, blue, yellow, and
orange (Fig. 4).
Digitalization, and therefore, blockchain, is an important parameter that, together with
sustainability, must be part of the modern strategic management approaches of wine
producers (Richter and Hanf 2021). To date, research has focused on the identification of
both barriers and challenges (Cordeiro and Olsen 2021), as well as the enabling factors
(Galati et al. 2021) affecting the motivation behind the adoption of blockchain-based
systems in the wine supply chain. BCT could be seen as an innovative instrument to let
forward-thinking wine producers distinguish themselves from the others by renewing
their business strategies to integrate the digital transformation concept. It could be seen
as an effective system to consolidate trust between supply chain players, such as buyers
and suppliers. Within the current non-digital supply chain, trust relationships are kept
through personal interactions, reputation, integrity, and cooperation, with commonly
shared values. Blockchain offers structural assurance through data immutability and
supply chain visibility (Brookbanks and Parry 2022). BCT could exploit positive effects
in the winemaking, such as trust establishment, food safety and quality guarantee, sup-
ply chain disintermediation, and anti-corruption, enhancing the sustainability of the
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 13 of 22

Fig. 4 Detail of the wine cluster

business model of a company (Tiscini et al. 2020). Considering this, the technology can
be implemented to reduce food and wine fraud. In 2021, the Italian wine sector received
the highest number of controls, almost 1 out of 3 companies, with irregularities detected
in 18% of operators and 11% of products, and seizures for 7.3 billion euros (over 70%
of the total). Counterfeit was one of the most common fraudulent activities, consist-
ing in copying the brand name, packaging concept, recipe, and processing method of
food products for economic gain, consciously deceiving the consumer behavior (ICQRF
2021). A blockchain system could be implemented to prevent and dishearten this phe-
nomenon, improving the current traceability methods through data management to
see all the transactions and clearly track the final product to detect where the wine bot-
tle is coming from, authenticate its origin and originality from vineyard cultivation to
wine consumption and packaging disposal (Popović et al. 2022; Tokkozhina et al., 2022;
Danese et al. 2021). Such a system will ensure transparency and security of all processes
involved within the wine production, as a quality info management tool. Since the block-
chain stream is immutable, counterfeiting and relabeling would not be successful, thus
ensuring transparency and security in the overall process. The information collected
along the supply chain is typed into the management system and made accessible by
farmers, winemakers, and bottlers; distributors, logistic operators, and consumers can
only consult all the information stored on the blockchain to know the origin, the quality,
the processing, and the authenticity of wines. As this is one of the most important fea-
tures when BCT is adopted in the wine supply chain, any customer can check the origin
and authenticity of the purchased wine at any time (Agnusdei et al. 2022; Biswas et al.
2017). This is the example of MyStory™, a permissioned BCT that, with the application
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 14 of 22

of QR codes on the bottles, supports the differentiation of the products, reducing the
costs of transactions and counterfeiting, validating the provenance of the goods in a sup-
ply chain for customers and the public, offering transparency, and engendering the pub-
lic’s trust in their products (Helliar et al. 2020). In addition to this, blockchain, with its
intrinsic characteristics, could bring several benefits to the agri-food and, therefore, to
the wine supply chain. It simplifies sharing information between actors and digitizes the
track and trace processes, reducing time and cost. Its transparency allows the identifi-
cation of contaminated products in time, with the consequent recall from the market,
thus reducing food waste (Adamashvili et al. 2021). Lastly, the adoption of a blockchain
system can contribute to improving the sustainability of wine companies. The relatively
low time-consuming and effective traceability system offered by BCT can be adopted
by wine companies and sustainability certifications, programs, or standards as a tool to
monitor greenhouse gas emission and water management. The reliability of the system
also shows future promises in detecting unethical suppliers, unfair labor practices, and
counterfeit products (Luzzani et al. 2021). The adoption of BCT can contribute to the
building and development of new digital competencies. However, its adoption is influ-
enced by the entrepreneurs’ propensity for innovation, a not-secondary aspect in the
Italian wine panorama, characterized by small and medium enterprises (Silvestri et al.
2023). It is worth bearing in mind that some peculiarities of the wine supply chain may
make it difficult to implement blockchain-based systems. This is the example of coopera-
tives, where the grape used in wine making comes from different producers. Blending
and mixing grapes may slow down the collection of information, making it more difficult
to provide univocal and precise information about the origin of that specific wine.

Blockchain applications in the olive oil supply chain

Differently from wine, olive oil was not included in the visualized items of the co-occur-
rence network. This result opens new research horizons, as the application in such a
specific supply chain may have not been fully exploited yet. A critical aspect in BCT
adoption in the olive oil production is the origin of the raw material. Besides small tra-
ditional productions, focused on bearing a well-defined sensory profile, olive oils from
larger and more industrialized producers are more standardized and often stem from
mixing up oils from different countries (Carbone et al. 2018). The high price and quality
of extra virgin olive oil make it a target for frauds, and traceability is an essential part of
the strategy to reduce this risk. In light of this, BCT could be used to enforce the cer-
tification of the entire supply chain of extra virgin olive oil (Conti 2022). For instance,
technology can be adopted to verify the authenticity of the extra virgin olive oil through
the traceability of the geographical origin of the olives by considering the content of par-
ticular elements, ensuring an effective implementation of the EU Commission Delegated
Regulation (EU) 2022/2104 of 29 July 2022. In addition, the integration of new processes
of production and data management is a mandatory step to meet consumer’s and mar-
ket’s requirements (Ben Ayed et al. 2022). In the literature, studies about the creation
of a BCT system to track and trace the entire supply chain are already available, from
seeding to the customer, while empowering olive oil traceability, extra virgin quality cer-
tification, and providing final consumers with quality and safety (Bistarelli et al. 2022;
Frikha et al. 2022; Ktari et al. 2022; Guido et al. 2020; Arena et al. 2019). As olive oil is
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 15 of 22

particularly vulnerable to adulteration and frauds, ensuring its authentication is a critical

step and a priority for producers, as consumers are willing to pay a premium price if the
quality is guaranteed. Blockchain could help to keep track of the visibility of all processes
throughout the chain and facilitate the detection of possible adulterations (Alkhudary
et al. 2022). If traceability is performed correctly, it facilitates the transparency of each
stage of olive oil production, increasing the final consumer’s trust when they buy or con-
sume the product (Fernandes et al. 2022; Masmoudi and Gargouri 2021). Consumers
are interested in the application of different kinds of technology in the FSC, and they are
even willing to pay a premium price if reliability, transparency, and security are ensured
(Violino et al. 2019). Finally, the possibility to monitor an olive field by using the internet
of things and BCT, coupled with wireless sensors to obtain data for temperature, humid-
ity, wind, and light, allows to have secure data and increase tracking to avoid any attempt
to steal or hack data related to products or agriculture (Ghorbel et al. 2022).

Conclusions and future research directions

The present study reviewed the literature on the potential application of BCT to the FSC
and those supply chains with high added value. This investigation provided a clear out-
line of the main applications of BCT that could be of interest to scholars. As a result, it
has investigated research areas that remain relatively or completely unexplored. Regard-
less of their methodological approach, scholars agree on the benefits of BCT. The intrin-
sic characteristics of this digital innovation make it a tool capable of ensuring greater
transparency and trust in food information for various supply chain actors, including
consumers (Bosona and Gebresenbet 2023; Agnusdei et al. 2022; Bastian and Zentes
2013).
The adoption of the technology allows the continuous and real-time monitoring of
data of various FSC links, thereby ensuring the quality and freshness of the products
and eliminating the problem of food fraud. The latter damages the image of companies
and the quality of products and it also causes economic damage to consumers (Vern
et al. 2023; Demestichas et al. 2020; Casado-Vara et al. 2018). The wine supply chain has
attracted the greatest interest among those scholars who wish to understand what drives
the adoption of BCT and what hinders its implementation. The results show that the
adoption of BCT is mainly driven by the need to combat fraudulent behaviors and by the
fact that it is a tool that support marketing strategies. However, this requires a change in
organizational structures and, specifically, the need for highly qualified human resources
able to implement, manage, and maintain the new technology (Galati et al. 2021; Tiscini
et al. 2020). On the other hand, few studies have explored other strategic supply chains
subject to frequent fraud, such as the supply chain for olive oil, in which BCT could play
an important role. Today more than ever, consumers are increasingly attentive to quality
but, above all, to the origin of the product. BCT could guarantee product authenticity,
origin, and quality, starting from the raw materials and moving along the supply chain,
to detect alterations of oil during transport (Bistarelli et al. 2022).
Conversely, studies focusing on environmental and social dimensions of BCT are lim-
ited. The support of the monitoring, recording, and reporting of the movement of goods
from “farm to fork” ensures more efficient coordination of processes thus reducing food
and resource waste (Krstić et al. 2023). Future studies in this area could explore how
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 16 of 22

the adoption of BCT can affect the sustainability of supply chain practices and thereby
improve organizational performance.
An in-depth analysis of the implementation costs incurred by the agribusiness in the
agri-food chain by adopting this emerging technology, along with an analysis of con-
sumer preferences, is essential to provide useful information to innovation-oriented
companies in the sector. It is necessary to shift the company’s organizational model, to
train internal human resources, or to contract out to a technology management service
(Galati et al. 2021; Tiscini et al. 2020). This has an inevitable significant impact on man-
agement costs, which is reflected in the price of consumer goods. Understanding how
consumers positively react to the decision of companies to implement BCT and how
many of them are willing to pay a premium for a transparent system could reduce the
concerns of FSC operators and encourage them to invest in this area.
Furthermore, our study underlines how one of the main barriers to the adoption of
BCT is the fact that companies are not always open to innovation and the difficulty in
integrating BCT with artificial intelligence tools (Kamble et al. 2020a). By systematizing
different technologies with the introduction of information from artificial intelligence
tools into the BCT digital ledger could help to support increasingly innovative suitable
business models. As sustainability is becoming the common paradigm, entrepreneurs
must consider its aspects when they do business and, therefore, when they develop sus-
tainable business models. Therefore, future studies should focus on the opportunities to
integrate different data sources and how they should be implemented according to the
structural and organizational characteristics of companies operating along the FSC.
Our work has several theoretical and practical implications in the managerial field. On
a theoretical level, it is, to the best of our knowledge, the first contribution to acknowl-
edge the role and implications of BCT not only in the agri-food chain but, more specifi-
cally, in high-value chains, as wine and olive oil. The results also have implications for
various operators in the agri-food chain, from the production to the distribution stage.
For high value-added products, the implementation of BCT can make it possible to
guarantee authenticity, origin, quality, and safety, responding to the growing demand for
food information from consumers. In this regard, food operators should try to integrate
various technologies and databases to make the supply chain increasingly transparent
and sustainable. This means investing in personnel training and organizational change,
which are now both more necessary than ever to remain competitive in the market.
This paper can surely open huge implications for theory and practice. Certainly,
they might become useful for agri-food policy strategies and entrepreneurs. Research
on BCT can highlight that this technology optimizes the processes in the supply chain
by, on the one hand, improving traceability, enhancing food safety, reducing times of
transaction, food fraud, and inefficient processes; on the other hand, this can result
in improving farmers’ profits (Devi et al. 2023; Fernandez et al. 2020; Lin et al. 2020).
From the social and inclusive perspective, the adoption of BCT in the whole agri-food
system can have repercussions thanks to the creation of new business models, the
reorganization of existing models, the introduction of new systems and new skills. In
addition, the research on the topic can give evidence that the BCT adoption presup-
poses the involvement of various stakeholders operating along the supply chain. They
will operate according to a virtuous cycle engaging them in peer-to-peer transactions,
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 17 of 22

reducing corruption, increasing accountability, and creating value for the firms and
the local communities as a whole. Additionally, BCT adoption can promote ethical
issues, like fair-trade and animal welfare thanks to an inclusive development ensuring
the access of small owners in a better market and ensuring safe payments or financial
possibilities.
The novelty of the system and its gray areas may concern several stakeholders, among
which policymakers, various players of the FSC, and consumers alike. A lack of consist-
ent and clear regulation and standards, accessibility gaps, data security and ownership,
privacy issues, required technological infrastructure, consumer knowledge and safety,
and human error are all potential challenges associated with the use of BCT in agri-food.
Agri-food companies should undertake efforts to demonstrate concrete benefits to bal-
ance the risks of data sharing. Policies and rules pertaining to BCT application have to
be defined and framed not to exploit any stakeholder, or deprive them of any rights, but
to favor their engagement and participation. Blockchain traceability is really effective if
technology becomes a tool adopted by the majority of actors in the supply chain, con-
solidating trust between operators and creating synergies. BCT should be implemented
so as to be used unconditionally by all, and not to be just the privileged tool for mar-
ket domination by larger players in the agri-food industry (Krstić et al. 2023; Mohapatra
et al. 2023; Krzyzanowski Guerra and Boys 2022; Bianchini and Kwon 2020).
Study limitations can exist due to the research areas selected by the software that
can appear fewer than the possible areas, thus decreasing the quantity of the delivered
works. Indeed, if on the one hand VOSviewer presents interesting new tools for zoom-
ing/scrolling/searching maps with details’, on the other hand, the viewing capabilities
seem above all good for a moderate number of items. However, a wider number of arti-
cles from several fields could also make the software analysis more difficult. Another
limitation that at the same time can become a further path of research could be not
having adopted different data mining techniques to compare the methodologies used
and so select the most effective classifiers (i.e., multi-layer perceptron, support vector
machines, linear discriminant analysis, and random forest). In addition, the inclusion of
the Shannon entropy indicator can make the investigation more insightful.

Abbreviations
FSC Food supply chain
BCT Blockchain technology
WoS Web of Science

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all the partners of the PRIN 2020 project “WEBEST” for their support to the research.

Author contributions
GC involved in conceptualization, writing—original draft, writing—review & editing, methodology, data curation, formal
analysis, visualization. DB took part in conceptualization, writing—review & editing, methodology, formal analysis. AD
involved in funding acquisition, supervision. MF took part in project administration, writing—review & editing, formal
analysis, validation, funding acquisition. FC involved in funding acquisition, supervision. AG took part in conceptualiza-
tion, project administration, writing—review & editing, formal analysis, validation, funding acquisition.

Funding
This work was supported by the 2020 Research Projects of Relevant National Interest (PRIN) of the Italian Ministry of
Universities and Research (MUR), which financed the project “WEBEST—Wine EVOO Blockchain Et Smart ContracT” (Prot.
020LMWF9Y).

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable
request.
Chiaraluce et al. Agricultural and Food Economics (2024) 12:6 Page 18 of 22

Declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Received: 31 July 2023 Revised: 6 December 2023 Accepted: 31 January 2024

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