Abstract
The growing concerns on seafood safety issues have promoted transparency of the food supply chain. Tracking tools are essential for consumers to understand the origin of food processing and for suppliers to detect flaws when contamination occurs. Blockchain technology is widely used in supply chains as it allows multiple parties to input and retrieve transactions without worrying about credibility. Track and trace management requires blockchain technology to ensure data accuracy and transparency. The research objective is to develop a food management tool for traceability in the seafood supply chain. As the foundation of the traceability tool, blockchain technology gives a decentralised structure and ensures the immutability of data collected. Python was chosen as the programming language for constructing the traceability tool, and a web interface for suppliers was created to input seafood data. Consumers can browse the entire supply chain of consumer products through QR codes on food packaging. The protocol is validated by using the tuna fish case study to fortify the blockchain and ensure the credibility and reliability of the supply chain. Consumers no need to question about the accuracy of data and transparency during data operation. The contamination tracing is validated by tracing the affected supply chain of frozen shrimp transported from an aquafarm, Shrimp Farm S/B, to a few retail sellers. There were six single chains, combining to form a complicated supply chain in the case study of shrimp. Consumers can view entire multiple chains in the supply chain information, from fishing vessels to selling units. When contamination happens at certain block, the affected block in the whole supply chain will be identified. The traceability tool developed keeps track of the entire seafood supply chain and, if any contamination occurs, immediate action can be taken. Immediate action to call back the seafood batch is necessary to avoid further losses and keep humans from consuming contaminated seafood. Future research may include the variables that cause seafood contamination, including the chemical hazard in traceability tools that comply with HACCP standards to ensure product safety before entering subsequent stages.
