Blockchain for Food Tracking

Abstract

A food shortage, which has increased with the climate crisis, will be one of the biggest problems of the world, together with water scarcity, in the future and will damage the sustainability of the food supply system. With the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, food resources are decreasing, and food prices are rising all over the world. The decrease in food sources increases the importance of food tracking even more. The exorbitant price increases after the COVID-19 pandemic are the most concrete indicators of this. Blockchain-based food tracking systems will be of critical importance because they will prevent exorbitant price increases with their contribution to food tracking processes, such as reliability and transparency. In this study, the establishment of a blockchain-based food tracking system in Turkey, its operation, and its results will be discussed. It was concluded that 97.54% of the participants using the established system found the application useful and wanted such an application to become widespread. In addition, comparing the performance data of the established blockchain-based system with other blockchain infrastructures, a value of 0.038 s for latency is 435 times better than Ethereum, one of the most popular blockchain infrastructures. A transmission per second value of 285, reception per second value of 335, and CPU load rate value of 19.22 are obtained with the proposed system.

1. Introduction

The awareness of protecting human health, which has increased on a global scale in recent years, has also shown itself in the food industry, and it has gained great importance that food be safe in order to lead a healthy life. Access to and the consumption of safe food is a right that every person should have. Food safety covers the whole process from the production stage of the food until it reaches the consumer [1]. More than 60% or about 1 billion tons of food is wasted within the supply chain while harvesting, processing, shipping, and storing [2]. For instance, nearly 492 million tons of perishable food were wasted in the year 2011 because of the ineffective and poor management of the food tracking systems [3].

According to the FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organization), food security is defined as the ability of every person to have access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food at all times to lead an active and healthy life [4]. Food safety is possible by taking every step of the food under control in the whole process, starting from the raw material until it reaches our table. Especially with the spread of digitalization, it is expected that the number and success of food tracking systems will increase [5]. The benefits of digitalization will be most clearly and largely achieved through the use of emerging technologies.

With the maturation and spread of emerging technologies, it has started to become a part of our daily life, shaping life and paving the way for digitalization [6]. One of the main reasons for digitalization is to reduce or even eliminate the need for manpower [7]. Undoubtedly, one of the prominent technologies at this point is blockchain technology, which is the infrastructure of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and many application areas have begun to emerge with the possibility of making transactions without intermediaries. Due to the advantages offered by blockchain technology, it has recently gained the notion of being the technological basis on which many applications are developed. It can be used in many different areas, such as smart city applications, IoT, health, energy management, and land registration systems [8]. Blockchain-based security approaches in remote patient monitoring using IoT devices are seen in the literature. In addition, blockchain-based cryptographic technologies could be used for deployment in the IoT [9]. Moreover, especially in recent times, we see that blockchain technology is used even in social media and content management, which is the abandonment of daily life. It is even seen that a naive blockchain- and watermarking-based social media framework is proposed to control fake news propagation [10]. As can be seen from all these examples, it is seen that blockchain technology can be applied in many different areas and the results obtained to make a significant contribution.

To define blockchain technology, it is a technology that eliminates the need for a central trust or authority, allowing trust to be distributed to the participants in the system. This technology can be defined as a decentralized database, and it is a chain of blocks, each of which contains numerical information. These blocks store a set of information or data in general terms. These sets of information hold more transactional information than storing data such as videos or images. After being filled with transactional data, the blocks are chained to the previous filled block. It also contains information such as the time the block was created (timestamp), the hash code of the block, the hash code of the previous block, the index information, and the nonce value. In the blockchain network, there are copies of the database at all parties of the distributed system. Keeping each of these copies in a distributed manner causes the data to be taken from a single center and moved to live in a multi-environment, making it difficult for potential attackers to be successful. When transactional information arrives on the network, this information is transmitted to nodes in the network. All nodes in the network record this transactional information in their block. It should be noted here that a copy of the blockchain is kept on all the nodes. Once the blocks are filled with enough transaction information (or even just one transaction information), this block needs to be added to the blockchain. When the advantages offered by the blockchain technology and the beneficial results obtained in the application examples are evaluated, it is seen that it can be used in many different areas, determined by the needs. One of these areas is food tracking, which will be one of the most important problems of today and possibly the future. This emerging technology has the potential to take food tracking systems to a new dimension.

A food shortage, which has increased with the climate crisis, will be one of the biggest problems of the world, together with water scarcity, in the future and will damage the sustainability of the food supply system. With the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, food resources are decreasing, and food prices are rising all over the world. The decrease in food sources increases the importance of food tracking even more. The exorbitant price increases after the COVID-19 pandemic are the most concrete indicators of this. Blockchain-based food tracking systems will be of critical importance because they will prevent exorbitant price increases with their contribution to food tracking processes, such as reliability and transparency. In this study, the establishment of a blockchain-based food tracking system in Turkey, its performance comparison, the operation of the system, and the results will be discussed.

This paper not only presents the establishment of a blockchain-based food tracking system in Turkey but also shows the comparison of the performance data of the established blockchain-based system with other blockchain infrastructures and the food tracking system without the blockchain layer. With the proposed system, reliability and transparency, as well as preventing exorbitant price advantages are targeted. The rest of the paper is organized as a literature review related to blockchain and its applications on food tracking systems, the methods and applications, the results and discussion, and finally, the conclusion.

2. Literature Summary

One of the foremost blockchain-based food tracking systems is the “Food Trust” system developed by IBM. Announced for the first time in 2017, Food Trust has provided traceability in the food supply chain to 80 different brands so far by using blockchain technology. With this traceability, the supply process from producers to consumers can be followed in detail. IBM’s open-source technology based on Hyperledger Fabric allows companies to set their own rules on the system. It is argued that the traceability offered by the Food Trust not only helps food safety but also helps producers with food freshness, sustainability, and waste. Announcing that more than 5 million food products already on the shelves are included in the system, IBM seems confident that this platform will grow strongly. Among the companies using this application are giants such as Dile, Kroger, McCormick and Company, Nestle, Tyson Foods, and Unilever [11].

Walmart has used blockchain to record where every piece of meat it buys from China comes from, where it is processed, where it is stored, and all transactions related to its sale, along with its historical course. All detailed information about the farm where the meat comes from, the factory where it is processed, the batch number of the product, the storage temperature of the product, and transportation can be tracked on the blockchain. In addition to the benefits of processing speed, information sharing, and transparency, the main purpose is summarized as increasing food safety [12].

Provenance has conducted a blockchain-based pilot project in Indonesia to transparently track the movement of products from sea to table in the fishing industry. The seafood trade consists of a very large fishing network, and it is a very difficult sector to control quality. There is no reliable audit in the sector. This project aims to help stop illegal, excessive, harmful to the sea and the environment, and non-sanitary fishing violations in the tuna fish industry. Thus, consumers will be able to view the source of the food they supply transparently, and a legal basis will be established to combat illegal fishing. With the use of this example, the aim is that the use of blockchain technology will facilitate transparency, tracking, and auditing, thus ensuring the safety of food products, preventing illegal and excessive fishing, and preventing damage to the environment [13].

Kim proposes a blockchain-based traceability system with different ontologies, where each one could accomplish and be part of certain transactions. He offers the use of smart contracts. Ethereum, with the Solidity programming language, was used in his study [14]. Feng Tian et al. propose a blockchain solution for agriculture traceability to ensure that the HACCP principles and requirements are addressed during the production, transportation, and preservation of a product [15].

Moreover, Daniel Tse et al. focus on the increasingly serious problem of food safety in China and propose a blockchain solution for the agriculture supply chain, based on the information and transaction security between all the involved parties. In this work, a PEST (political, economic, social, and technological) environment analysis took place to define the challenges and the opportunities of the DLT (Distributed Ledger Technologies) solution [16].

In addition, Francesco Marinello et al. offer a blockchain-based solution focusing on the animal products supply chain in Italy [17]. Kumar et al. propose a rice supply chain system that uses blockchain technology to assure the safety of rice during its flow through the supply chain [18].

Maria Elena Latino et al. propose another interesting idea regarding the agriculture supply chain and the use of Industry 4.0 principles [19]. They refer to the idea of food democracy, according to which consumers are considered citizens and the food is not a good but a civil right. The authors advertise the idea of voluntary traceability and combine it with Industry 4.0 technologies. The significance of voluntary traceability is highlighted, focusing on the volume and the quality of the data collected for each product, as well as the need for a big data platform to handle them.

Islam and others published work about the visualization of food supply chain management. Their research aims to propose a new visualization approach that allows supply chain operators to collaborate effectively in the design process of FTSs capable of maintaining streamlined information flow, minimizing information loss, and improving supply chain performance [20].

Bahga et al. proposed work to monitor the food supply chain tracking system on a cloud-based architecture. The proposed system, called CloudTrack, provides the global information of the entire fleet of food supply vehicles and is proposed to be used to track and monitor a large number of vehicles in real time [21].

Caro et al. propose an integrated solution of a blockchain platform named AgriBlockIoT in the agriculture supply chain [22]. AgriBlockIoT is a fully distributed system that uses blockchain technology in combination with IoT devices to collect and distribute traceability data. The proposed solution was tested with two Ethereum and Hyperledger Sawtooth blockchain platforms. AgriBlockIoT enables the integration of IoT and blockchain technologies, creating transparent, fault-tolerant, immutable, and auditable records which can be used for an agri-food traceability system.

Tian proposes a blockchain-based food tracking system, especially to solve the recent problems related to food tracking in China. Arguing that traditional agricultural supply logistics systems do not fully meet market needs, he proposes a more dynamic RFID-based food supply chain management system. With the proposed system, it is advocated that traceability with reliable information in the entire agri-food supply chain effectively guarantees food safety by collecting, transferring, and sharing the original data of agri-food in production, processing, storage, distribution, and sales connections [23].

Contributions of Proposed Study

The novelty and contributions of this proposed study are:

• A total of 0.038 s for latency was gathered with the proposed system, which is 435 times better than Ethereum, one of the most popular blockchain infrastructures.
• A transmission per second value of 285, reception per second value of 335, and CPU load value of 19.22 are obtained with the proposed blockchain-based system.
• Through the proposed blockchain-based system to be established, suppliers that make unfair price increases in the case of a food shortage, which will become a bigger problem in the coming periods due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be prevented.
• It is the first study in which the live use of the blockchain-based food tracking system is carried out and the satisfaction survey is carried out.
• A total of 75.31% of the users who use the application liked the interface of the application; 97.54% of the users stated that they found the application extremely useful and that they would like to use it again in the future.

3. Method and Applications

Hyperledger Fabric was chosen as the infrastructure on which the proposed blockchain-based system will be developed. Another tool of Hyperledger, Hyperledger Explorer, was used to provide transparent visibility of transactions in the established Hyperledger Fabric-based system. The use of these two infrastructure elements is of great importance in terms of embodying transparency and reliability features. All smart contract transactions are carried out over the Hyperledger Fabric layer. Because blockchain transactions and processes require high performance, a need for a computer with high processing power has arisen. A device with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card, Intel i7 12700KF processor, 16 GB RAM, and 1TB SSD has been determined and Ubuntu 20.04 operating system is chosen to be used.

The study will first start with a literature review of the blockchain technology-based food tracking system. In the current situation, the application examples in the market will be examined, and the academic studies will be used to guide the food tracking system that is planned to be developed. After the application examples are examined, the stage of realization of the study will be started. Firstly, the design will be carried out in line with the requirements of the system to be established. Secondly, the infrastructure to be used in the system to be developed will be decided. Many alternatives in the market offer the smart contracts infrastructure that is the basis of the blockchain-based system we plan to develop. Determining the appropriate one is of great importance for the success of the study and not to get to a dead end. After the system design and the smart contract infrastructure to be used are determined, the development phase of the application will begin. With the developed blockchain-based system, the comparison of the performance data of the established blockchain-based system with other blockchain infrastructures and the food tracking system without the blockchain layer will take place. Afterward, the implementation of the system in real-life will be performed and the results will be discussed. Then, the study will be concluded. The detailed methodology is given in Figure 1.

There are several basic limitations to the scope of the study. First, it started by excluding foods that require certain certification for production/tracking, such as eggs and chicken. The aim is to prevent the study from becoming complicated as the identification of this type of food will require an additional layer and verification process. Secondly, it was decided that it would be appropriate to narrow the scope a little more at this stage, as there will be a wide variety of products in the concept of food tracking. For this reason, only agricultural products were included in the study, and other food types such as milk and dairy products were not included in the study. Finally, tracking of products imported from abroad was excluded from the scope, and only domestically produced foods were included.

3.1. Method

With the increasing population, food consumption is also increasing simultaneously. Accordingly, food producers or intermediaries try to reach the highest output level they can produce with their existing capacities to meet this demand and to bring the excess demand to the balance point, but the quality of these products causes various concerns in the consumer. On the other hand, the problems in the economies of the countries after COVID-19 and the decrease in the production of crops cause exorbitant price increases. At this point, the establishment of a blockchain-based food tracking system will be a solution to transparently displaying the process of food products from the soil to the end-user, both easily determining the exorbitant prices and determining the origin of the products correctly. With the system to be established, a tool that can allocate an environment of trust will be obtained. System analysis studies were carried out in line with all these needs. In the current situation, the life cycle of a product from soil to end-users has been examined. For this, various web pages were examined, face-to-face interviews were conducted with sellers and intermediaries, and how this process was carried out was investigated.

When the whole process is examined, seeds and supplement materials are purchased from suppliers, processed by the producer, and turned into products, then wholesaled in factories and delivered to retailers through the distribution chain. Finally, it is offered to the end-user, that is, the consumer. When the whole process is evaluated, it is seen that it can be constructed as a six-party system in total (Figure 2).

The advantages to being obtained at all stages of the system to be created and the contents of the application steps are given below:

• Raw material purchase: Information such as product type, amount of chemical, which is the shopping information between the supplier and the manufacturer, is recorded in the blockchain structure. QR codes can be used to automate these processes.
• Planting the crop: The producer records the number and type of seeds used during planting in the blockchain structure. With a smart contract to be used here, it can be checked that no more seeds are planted from the seed taken in the previous transaction.
• Cultivation: With the networked microcontrollers to be used here, information about the growing place of the product, how much water or sun it receives can be added to the blockchain. Again, when there is an anomaly with smart contracts, it can be recorded.
• Harvest: During the harvest of the planted product, adding the obtained amount to the blockchain with IoT devices can be automated and it can be determined whether the product is organic through the process from seed to harvest.
• Delivery of the product to the fabricator: Using GPS technology, the delivery process of the product to the fabricator can also be monitored with IoT devices.
• Production: The amount delivered to the manufacturer can be added to the blockchain. In this way, it is possible to monitor how much loss is incurred in the transfer phase of the goods from the manufacturer to the manufacturer.
• Delivery of the product to the retailer: Using GPS technology, the delivery process of the product to the retailer can also be monitored with IoT devices. The quantity and freshness of the delivered product can be recorded on the blockchain.
• Consumption: The consumer can view the entire life cycle of this product, all data collected, with the help of a QR code. They can also observe how the pricing is conducted in all the above transactions.

There is a need for a system flow that will achieve results with a holistic approach and meaningful activities at all these stages. For this reason, the system flow will be carried out in 12 steps, from the sowing of the seed to the consumer, taking into account these needs sequentially (Figure 3).

• Manufacturer, intermediary, and retailer parties register to the system with company details: First of all, all of the parties that will be in the blockchain network to be established are registered and logged into the system.
• Control of firms is provided by governmental institutions: It is checked whether the records of the companies registered in the system match the official sources. For example, in Turkey, this process can be carried out quickly through MERSIS (Central Registry Registration System), through web services provided by governmental institutions.
• Crop information is gathered: Crop detail information, such as crop cultivation place, harvest amount, soil used, fertilizer, medicine, is entered into the system by the producer as soon as the crop is collected.
• The selling price of the product is determined by the manufacturer: The manufacturer declares the unit sales price of the product and the number of products in its possession.
• The intermediary firm (or called fabricator) offers the price and quantity to buy the product: The intermediary company or the factory that will carry out the packaging process sends the quantity of product and price information requested from the manufacturer as an offer.
• The manufacturer evaluates the offers and selects the appropriate ones: The manufacturer evaluates the offers and accepts that he finds them suitable, and the product is exchanged at the agreed price and amount
• The intermediary company enters the shipping information of the product: The intermediary firm enters the shipping information it uses while procuring the products it buys from the manufacturer into the system.
• The intermediary firm determines the sales price for the product: In this step, the intermediary firm does the same as the manufacturer in step 4. Enters the unit price and quantity information of the product into the system.
• The seller offers the price and quantity to buy the product: In this step, retail firms do the same as the intermediary firms do in the 5th step. They declared the price and quantity offered to the intermediary firm making the sale, based on the quantity offered for the product.
• The intermediary firm evaluates the incoming offers and accepts what it deems appropriate: The intermediary firm that supplies the product evaluates the offers from the retailers and accepts what it finds appropriate.
• Handover of the product is provided based on the agreed price and quantity: According to the agreed price and quantity, the product is delivered together with the transportation information.
• The whole flow above is shown to the end-user (customer) transparently together with the date information: When the customer accesses the product at the end-user sales points, such as the market, it transparently displays the entire journey of the product. For this, it performs the history display process by querying the product or QR code.

One of the most important issues is the method of data collection. There are different approaches, depending on whether it will be with GPS or with IoT sensors. In addition, different options are offered for storing and analyzing data. In some, data are stored on vehicles, while in others, data collection and management can be performed on central servers (

Table 1. Comparison of related works in the literature [21].

Data Collection	Data Storage	Data Analysis	Control Mechanism	Coverage and Scalability
Multiple sensor nodes in the container, master sensor node in each vehicle	Relational sensor database in an operational center	Operation center. The user can monitor and track visualized data on webpage	No automated control mechanism described	Scalability is limited due to the use of the relational database
Multiple slave nodes in the container, master node, GPS receiver in each vehicle	Data logger and a local PC in the vehicle. Option for transmitting the data to a remote server	Local PC in the vehicle. Option for transmitting the data to a remote server monitoring center	No automated control mechanism described	Real-time miniature wireless monitoring system. No mechanism for capturing global knowledge of the entire fleet and scalability described

). Again, it is seen that there are different approaches depending on whether the data are processed and monitored in real time. It is seen that all of the classical methods here do not have an automatic control mechanism in common. It is planned to establish this mechanism with the proposed blockchain-based infrastructure. Thus, thanks to the automatically managed system, both the ability to take high-speed action will be gained and the security of the data will be ensured.

When the studies in the literature are evaluated, it is seen that food tracking systems are managed in 4 layers. These are source streaming, web server, application server, and database layers, respectively (Figure 4).

In line with the proposed system within the scope of the study, it is recommended to add a blockchain layer in front of the existing source stream layer (Figure 5). With the smart contract structure, the aim is to make food tracking more transparent and safe and prevent data destruction.

In the traditional approach, the data obtained from the source are transferred directly to the application layer. At this point, if there is no additional security layer, there may be cyber-attacks in the supply chain. In addition, it is seen that the direct transfer of the obtained data to another source on a single source can only be performed in a closed way. This is an important indication that the principle of transparency does not exist in this structure. With the addition of the blockchain layer, an important line of defense has been established for the security of data. Because advanced cryptography (hash code structure) is used, the probability of successful cyber-attacks on a blockchain-based system is almost impossible. On the other hand, considering that blockchain technology allows the formation of chains by adding blocks end-to-end and the transparent monitoring of this chain, it provides an important advantage for the tracking of data. In addition, the system is not controlled by a central authority, because the ownership of the data does not belong to any party, that is, all participants have a copy of the data in a distributed structure. Thus, a system in which the buyer and seller can transact between themselves without the involvement of any third party will be achieved. In summary, in traditional approaches, while the data from the source is transferred directly to the application server via web services, an additional layer is added to the blockchain layer; security and transparency will be guaranteed. In addition, with this added blockchain layer, the way to manage the entire supply process in a decentralized way will be opened.

With the proposed system, data will be obtained from the devices in the food tracking containers, and this data will be collected on the blockchain-based system. Food tracking will be carried out not only on the vehicle but at all stages of the supply chain. The distribution of the obtained data will be delivered to the end-user through the servers (Figure 6).

After the data received from the supply chain units are passed through the blockchain layer, smart contracts are created, and all transactions are executed and tracked through smart contracts. The data obtained from the output of the process are sent to the internet layer for distribution. After that, it is propagated to the end-user to view the output of the system (Figure 7).

3.2. Deciding the Smart Contract Infrastructure

While investing in technology, a detailed market analysis of the product to be produced with the relevant technology is of great importance in terms of obtaining successful outputs. The preparation of such reports requires significant experience, knowledge, and market monitoring. Some research companies conduct such research and present various reports, as technology companies cannot find the opportunity to make such a deep analysis in their daily routines and/or they may not have sufficient depth of knowledge. It is generally seen that large technology companies follow such external analyses while making technological investments and make investment decisions after analyzing their outputs. As one of these companies, Gartner is in the market; it is known as one of the world’s leading companies in technology and market analysis. It is a prestigious company that follows emerging technologies and offers many detailed analyses. As expected, Gartner did not remain indifferent to the remarkable advantages offered by blockchain technology and researched this technology. In the report prepared as a result of the research, it is emphasized that the development and maturity of decentralized open blockchain applications have increased, but similar results have not yet been achieved in successful private enterprise blockchain projects. When the hypecycle in which the investigations are made, according to the types of blockchain applications examined, it is seen that financial applications are in the “enlightenment trend” stage; it is seen that it will pass to the level of maturity in between 2 and 5 years. Apart from the financial applications of blockchain technology, it is widely used. Smart contract applications, on the other hand, are currently in the “trough of disillusionment” stage and will take a little longer to reach maturity; but, in between 5 and 10 years, it is seen that this field will reach the level of maturity (Figure 8) [24].

Although the name “trough of disillusionment” stage evokes negativity, it is a point on the way for all-new generation technologies to reach maturity. Seeing concretely that the exaggerated expectations about technology are in vain is called disappointment. After this stage, the capability of technology will begin to be considered more realistically, and the success rate of applications will increase gradually. Therefore, it looks like smart contract applications have a brilliant future ahead. A smart contract is a type of concrete computational deal between the buyer and the seller that works by writing the contract directly into the lines of code. The code and contracts here are distributed; it is located on a decentralized blockchain network. The code controls execution; transactions are traceable and irreversible.

There are many alternatives on the market that offer blockchain infrastructure. Ethereum, R3 Corda, and Hyperledger are the most prominent of them. Although all of them have pros and cons, choosing them according to the area in which they will be used is one of the factors that will increase success. An infrastructure where supply chain management can be performed will be preferred due to compatibility with the subject of the study. In addition, a permissioned network is needed where participants can be managed by a mechanism. On the other hand, performance is another important issue that needs to be addressed. The research has started to be carried out in this direction.

First of all, R3 Corda was eliminated in line with these criteria. It is an infrastructure that can be used mostly in the field of finance, whereas our application area is the field of food supply management systems. Although R3 Corda offers an advanced blockchain infrastructure for financial applications, it has been determined that it is not suitable for this study. Smart contract infrastructures offered by Ethereum and Hyperledger companies support supply chain tracking applications.

Secondly, a flexible permissioned network to be able to identify the participants of the network is needed. While the infrastructure offered by Hyperledger fully supports this, the infrastructure offered by Ethereum partially allows this and offers a stricter infrastructure compared to Hyperledger.

The third important criterion is performance. Because performance is one of the most important elements for ensuring and disseminating the use of many applications, the proposed system should have high transaction performance to ensure this. The past studies using these two infrastructures based on performance data were analyzed. When the data provided by Hyperledger and Ethereum infrastructures such as latency, transmission/reception per second, and CPU load rates were compared, it is seen that systems developed with Hyperledger infrastructure allow processing with higher performance (

Table 2. Ethereum and Hyperledger performance comparison values [22].

	Latency (s)	Net Tx (Bytes)	Net Rx (Bytes)	CPU Load (%)
Ethereum	16.55	528	682	46.78
Hyperledger	0.021	19	20	6.75

) [22]. In particular, Hyperledger’s Fabric solution stands out at this point.

Because blockchain is a new technology, the most common problem in applications developed using this technology is the lack of resources. Because the number of applications is limited, it may take a long time to solve the problems encountered during the development phase, and some issues even seem to be deadlocked. Therefore, it is critical to overcome the problems for the selected application infrastructure preferred by technology developers. At this point, Hyperledger stands out from other blockchain infrastructure options because it is a formation that was created by the Linux open-source code community and received the support of technology giants such as IBM, Fujitsu, and Cisco.

Hyperledger Fabric is an open-source, enterprise-grade permissioned blockchain infrastructure designed for use in enterprise environments. It is the first distributed ledger platform to support smart contracts written in general-purpose programming languages, such as Java, Go, and JavaScript, rather than restricted domain-specific languages. It is specially designed to have a modular architecture. This allows Hyperledger Fabrics to be used to fit different needs. Fabric builds consensus based on the order of operations and broadcasts blocks to nodes in the network. It allows the creation of an independently configurable authentication and verification protocol per application. Hyperledger Fabric mitigates the risk of a participant deliberately introducing malicious code with a smart contract on the permissioned network. Participants get to know each other and all actions, such as presenting application actions, changing the network configuration, or deploying a smart contract are recorded in the blockchain, following a verification policy for the network and the relevant transaction type. Fabric is currently the most active Hyperledger project and offers a highly scalable system. It is also a permissioned platform and provides privacy through its channel architecture. Participants in the network must first create channels between them to perform a particular operation.

The latest version of a Hyperledger Fabric network, which was formed after all operations were completed, is given in Figure 9. First of all, an organization that will establish the N network is required. Here, the organization that established the network is R4. R4 organization starts O4 (Orderer Service) after setting NC4 (Network Config). O4 peers are responsible for installing the smart contract and ensuring consensus. R4, who has admin authority in the network, can share this authority with the R1 organization if they wish. The organizations symbolize companies or participants. If a channel is to be created, a consortium is established to show with whom this channel will be created. With this consortium, the participants of the channel can be determined. The configuration files of the channel are located in the “Channel Config”. In addition, organizations also have an MSP (Membership Service Provider). P1, P2, and P3 are machines here. Peers carry smart contracts (S5) and blockchain (L1) inside them. Smart contracts can read and write to the “World State” of the blockchain. Moreover, each channel is connected to the Orderer Service (O4) because O4 provides the consensus mechanism that keeps all peers in sync. A1, A2, and A3 are external participants, and they do this through peers thanks to the API. For this project, the producer can be considered as the manufacturer and the intermediary. Their access to the network can be restricted within the CC regulated by the organizations. As can be seen, an organization can be a participant in more than one channel. In this case, the peer belonging to that organization can keep more than one ledger (blockchain) and smart contract (chaincode) for separate channels.

Therefore, with all these advantages, it was decided to use Hyperledger blockchain infrastructure within this study. There are many infrastructure products offered by Hyperledger. Fabric is the most prominent among them, so it was decided to use this to build the proposed system.

3.3. Development of the Application

After the determined system flow and infrastructure, the development phase of the system has started. The installation of the necessary environment for the Hyperledger Fabric framework has begun. During the installation, the installation documents published by Hyperledger Fabric were used. First, the “curl” tool and the “git” version control software were installed. After these installations were completed, the Go programming language tool was installed. In addition to the Go language, packages such as “Python”, “Nodejs”, “npm” were also installed. In addition, “docker” and “docker-compose”, which are the containerization technology required for Fabric to work, were also installed. Finally, Hyperledger Fabric was installed. The “/bin” folder inside the “fabric-samples” folder is set as the environment variable. The version information of the installed programs is given in

Table 3. Package information used in the installation of the system.

Package Name	Version
curl	7.68
git	2.25.1
go	1.16.7
python	2.7.18
nodejs	14.17.4
npm	7.20.5
docker	20.10.8
docker-compose	1.29.2
Hyperledger Fabric	2.2.3
jq	1.6

.

After the creation of the blockchain network with Hyperledger Fabric, it became clear that there was a need for another tool to transparently display the transactions, channels, and blocks performed on the network. At this point, it was decided to use the “Explorer” tool, which is one of the tools offered by Hyperledger. Explorer can be qualified as a tool that meets all these requirements.

After the infrastructural installations of the network were completed, the stage of making the system operational with the actors determined was carried out. In the created system, the illustration in which the parties are defined is located in Figure 10.

The genesis block is the most special block for all systems because it shows that the system is running and is different from other blocks. A file named “configtx.yaml” was created to create the genesis block and define channel permissions. In this created file, the permissions of the organizations, consensus algorithm, channel components, and communication ports were defined. Because this file will be used with multiple commands, a bash script file named “generate-channel-artifacts.sh” was created, which is responsible for the execution of these commands. The genesis block was created with the following code:

• configtxgen -profile AgriOrdererGenesis -outputBlock ./channel-artifacts/genesis.block channelID agriorderergenesis.
• Then, a channel configuration file named “mychannel”, including other organizations, was created and the system was started. The code is given below:
• configtxgen-profile AgriChannel-outputCreateChannelTx./channel-artifacts/channel.tx channelID mychannel.

In Hyperledger Fabric, smart contracts are called “chaincode”. In Fabric, smart contracts can be executed with Go, Java, and JavaScript. JavaScript language was chosen to implement the application. Hyperledger Fabric features the IBM Blockchain Platform interface developed by IBM for rapid prototyping of smart contracts. This interface was installed on our system as a “VS Code” plugin (Figure 11).

A smart contract structure that works in line with the system flow determined by using the VS Code interface was obtained. A sample smart contract screenshot over the developed application is seen in Figure 12.

4. Results

Before using the blockchain-based food tracking system, the performance data of the system were obtained. In this way, it will be necessary to prevent problems such as scalability and to stop the work if it is foreseen that the blockchain-based system to be used will not reach the desired performance values. The performance values of Ethereum and Hyperledger Sawtooth are used to benchmark the values obtained from the proposed system. A simulation environment has been set up to collect and compare these data using Matlab. The latency (s), Net Tx (bytes), Net Rx (bytes), and CPU load (%) values are the variables that keep the data obtained in this simulation environment. With the data obtained in this simulation environment, the aim is to reveal the difference with other platforms clearly and concretely.

The latency (s) value in the proposed system was obtained as 0.038. The transmission per second value is 285, the reception per second value is 335, and the CPU load rate value is 19.22. Especially when we evaluate the latency times, the obtained value is at a very good level compared to Ethereum. When it is compared with Hyperledger Sawtooth, it is seen that there is a little more delay. The main reason for this is that the system architecture is more complicated, and the data size obtained is high. This is also evident from the fact that the transmission per second and reception per second values are much higher than Hyperledger Sawtooth. It has been observed that a rate of 19.22 was achieved in the CPU usage rate (

Table 4. Benchmark of performance values.

	Latency (s)	Net Tx (Bytes)	Net Rx (Bytes)	CPU Load (%)
Ethereum	16.55	528	682	46.78
Hyperledger Sawtooth	0.021	19	20	6.75
The Proposed System	0.038	285	335	19.22

). As a result, it is seen that the performance data obtained have a serious advantage over Ethereum, especially in terms of latency, and it has started to converge in other values (Figure 13). Considering that the real-time operation of the installed system is extremely important, the choice of Hyperledger Fabric has once again emerged as the right decision.

After the differences and advantages of the established blockchain-based system, according to different infrastructures, were presented concretely, the second stage was started. In order to examine what kind of differences the blockchain layer provides, there are three main criteria in the literature that can be applied [26]:

• Transaction confirmation time: The average time of the blockchain layer to confirm a receipt or deposit message.
• Throughput: The average number of receipts and deposit messages that are successfully recorded in the blockchain per second.
• Block size: As the chain size grows, it is expected to increase in size along with the hash algorithm difficulty.

Firstly, the transaction verification time data of the created blockchain-based system data are analyzed. It is seen that there is a higher rate of increase in the time required for verification as the number of nodes and the number of transactions to be verified increase (Figure 14). Secondly, when the number of transactions per second data is analyzed, it is seen that the efficiency is high in the case of a low number of nodes and transactions, but as the number increases, the acceleration in efficiency decreases and even goes toward stabilization (Figure 15). Thirdly, block-size data are one of the important parameters for CPU usage. The larger the block sizes, the higher the CPU utilization rate and the need for performance tuning will arise. When the block-size data are analyzed, no unusual situation was encountered, and as the data and transaction density increased, the block size increased at the same rate (Figure 16).

After the performance values of the created blockchain-based system are obtained, in line with the three criteria decided before, the comparison of these values with the system without the blockchain layer begins. After the addition of the blockchain layer, it is seen that there is an increase in the verification times. The addition of the blockchain layer causes an increase in the verification time in the system (Figure 17).

Secondly, the throughput value comparisons are performed. It is seen that the throughput increases proportionally before the blockchain layer is added. After adding the blockchain layer, it is observed that the efficiency is higher even before the blockchain in the low transaction and node numbers, but as the number of transactions and nodes increases, the acceleration gradually decreases and starts to become stable (Figure 18).

The transaction verification time and throughput data before and after the addition of the blockchain layer reflect the realities of blockchain technology. The most discussed topics of blockchain technology are performance values. Considering that a Bitcoin verification process takes more than ten minutes, it is a fact that the system does not promise high performance. However, the most important advantage of blockchain technology is the security and decentralized management of data. This is also true for this study. When the obtained data are examined, it is seen that as the number of transactions increases, a higher time is required for verification. When the throughput data are compared, it is seen that blockchain provides an advantage over conventional methods in transactions with a low size and number, but it turns into a disadvantageous situation as the transaction density increases. In addition, it should not be overlooked that blockchain is an important technological component in such systems where it is desired to obtain a secure system where all devices are kept together without the need for any central authority. The performance values obtained here do not seem very low, revealing a tolerable situation. Considering its other advantages, it is certain that the blockchain layer will provide significant advantages.

In particular, the proposed blockchain layer seems to provide a significant performance advantage over other popular blockchain applications in the market. In terms of latency, it has been seen to be ahead of both Ethereum and Hyperledger Sawtooth. In particular, considering that the food tracking system does not tolerate very high latency, it has been observed that a latency of 0.038% is obtained, whereas Ethereum’s latency of 16% is a very serious figure, giving close to real-time data. In addition, it was observed that there was a convergence to Ethereum in the transaction time data per second, and it was far ahead of Sawtooth. In CPU load rates, it achieved a rate of 19%, depending on the number of transactions per second, taking its place at half the level of Ethereum and achieving a good position in performance. Thus, it is seen that the proposed blockchain-based food tracking system has been successfully built.

After demonstrating that the performance data of the installed blockchain-based food tracking system are satisfactory and provide serious advantages, it is necessary to work on putting the system into use. The next step after the installation of the system is to put it into use, first in the pilot region and then across the country. Currently, a study on UDTS (Product Verification and Tracking System) has been carried out in Turkey and it was put into use at the end of 2018 by the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Although blockchain technology is not used in this project, within the scope of this study, the aim is to follow the food of the following products through a system, under government control:

• Supplements;
• Honey;
• Energy drinks;
• Black tea;
• Vegetable oils;
• Baby foods.

Although such a useful application was developed, it was not widely used. The main reasons for this can be listed as the lack of transparency, the need for continuous central control, and the inability to provide the right access to the end-user. Because the application we have developed is blockchain-based, we can say that basic restrictions will be eliminated with the provision of transparency and the elimination of the need for a central authority.

Because we did not have the chance to implement our application throughout the country at this stage, we took action to run the application unofficially in a pilot region and decided to implement it in a market. Therefore, we agreed to pilot the application we developed with a branch of big market chains that are open to technological innovations and have a large customer circulation in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. With the study to be carried out in the pilot region, the aim is to evaluate the feedback that the system will receive from the users. In case the feedback is positive, the aim is to provide a basis for use throughout the country and to obtain a solid evidence base so that the performance values can be obtained from real usage data.

With the announcements in the grocery section where tomato and potato vegetables are located, we made the participants be included in the system by reading the QR code to the volunteers. Surely, we both obtained the food tracking adventures of tomatoes and potatoes on sale from the UTDS system and contacted the producers at the missing points. As a result of the studies that we carried out for 3 months (October–December 2021), we asked short survey questions of two questions each to the participants.

During this period, a total of 7828 users viewed the application. While 5560 users logged into the application and had a user experience, 2268 users did not prefer to use the application despite seeing it and continued their shopping (

Table 5. Number of times the app is used.

	Number of People	Percentage (%)
Prefer to use the application	5560	72.03
Prefer not to use the application	2268	27.97

). We see that the number of users who use the application after seeing it is 72.03%. Although we hoped to encounter a higher rate in this period of accelerating digitalization, the reason for this number to remain low may be due to the elderly and people who do not have or do not prefer to use smartphones. In addition, participants who are in a hurry can also be considered as one of the reasons for this rate. When we evaluate all these, we can say that the rate of 72.03% is not very low and that people are open to innovation.

A short two-question survey was conducted with 5560 users using the application. The purpose of the survey is to evaluate the application as a result of the experience of the users. We aimed to measure this with questions under two headings: the purpose of use and ease of interface. The first question was whether they liked the interface design of the application. While 4187 of the participants liked the interface design, 1323 of them stated that there was a need for improvement and 50 of them said that they did not like it at all (

Table 6. User interface satisfaction survey results.

Evaluate the Interface Design of the Application	Number of People	Percentage (%)
Useful	4187	75.31
Needs improvement finds	1323	23.79
Impractical	50	0.90

). If we examine the survey results, we see that 75.31% of the users who use the application like the interface of the application, while the others have low satisfaction. Considering that this developed application is not a commercial product but a proof of concept (PoC) study, it is obvious that there will be some development needs if it is turned into a commercial product. For this reason, we can say that the rate of 75.31% is acceptable, and the PoC work has been completed with an average/acceptable interface.

The second question is to exclude the interface design; it is questioning whether the purpose of use of this application is meaningful and whether the users will want to use an application for this purpose again in the future. While 5423 of the participants stated that the application is useful and will use it again in the future, 125 of them stated that it needs improvement and 12 of them did not like the application and that they would not use it again (

Table 7. User satisfaction survey results.

Evaluate the Application Regardless of the Interface Design	Number of People	Percentage (%)
Useful	5423	97.54
Needs improvement finds	125	2.25
Impractical	12	0.21

). With this question, it was aimed to measure whether the blockchain-based food tracking systems would be meaningful in the eyes of the public. The majority of the participants, 97.54%, stated that they found the application extremely useful and that they would like to use it again in the future. This shows how positively people approach this concept that we have developed.

5. Conclusions

In this study, the establishment of a blockchain-based food tracking system in Turkey, its performance comparison, the operation of the system, and the results are discussed. The flow of a food tracking system has been demonstrated in Turkey, and accordingly, the 12-step system flow required to develop a blockchain-based food tracking system has been obtained. Comparing the performance data of the established blockchain-based system with other blockchain infrastructures, a value of 0.038 s for latency is 435 times better than Ethereum, one of the most popular blockchain infrastructures. A transmission per second value of 285, reception per second value of 335, and CPU load rate value of 19.22 are obtained with the proposed system. Because it is not currently possible to put such a system into use throughout the country, choosing a pilot region and operating the system in this region and taking their feedback is essential for obtaining solid evidence to show that the users of the system are looking for such a system to use. For this, a survey study was conducted on the users of the system. We can say that the results obtained are concrete proof of how much the system is needed and that it is favored by the public. The system was used for three months in the selected pilot study area. A total of 7828 users viewed the application. A total of 72.03% of them (5560 users) logged into the application and had a user experience. As a result of the two-question survey directed to these participants, 75.31% of the users who use the application like the interface of the application, while the others have low satisfaction. Considering that this developed application is not a commercial product but a proof of concept (PoC) study, it is obvious that there will be some development needs if it is turned into a commercial product. For this reason, we can say that the rate of 75.31% is acceptable, and the PoC work has been completed with an average/acceptable interface. The majority of the participants, 97.54%, stated that they found the application extremely useful and that they would like to use it again in the future. This shows how positively people approach this concept that we have developed. All these positive results reveal the success and potential of the system we have developed. It demonstrates the great need for such a system in the eyes of the public. In addition, along with the transparency of the food tracking process to be achieved through the developed application, the infrastructure has also been provided to create a model where exorbitant price determination can be easily observed. In this way, the relevant institutions of the state will be able to easily detect possible problems of exorbitant price increases, and there will be a chance to intervene quickly if the public is harmed by this situation. In future studies, considering that this limited period of three months will not be enough, firstly, this system should be carried beyond the pilot study area and transformed into an application that is used firstly throughout the country and then at the international level. In addition, as a result of the use of such a system throughout the country, real performance data will be obtained, and thus real-time data will be compared on a blockchain-based food tracking system.