**4. Challenges**

While the food supply chain can benefit from big data, the following challenges need to be addressed.


enterprises and governmen<sup>t</sup> creates poor system compatibility, which inhibits data circulation. Therefore,a new business model is urgently needed, for example: the establishment of an incentive mechanism to explore new methods of data fusion to establish an effective privacy protection method and encourage data owners to share data.

•**Data security.** Private information, such as consumer activity and social relationships, is hidden in food data. For example, based on the user's location, there are connections to tracking data (such as order and logistical data and a location picture), so consumers can be tracked through association analysis, which may represent a risk to the their security [74]. In the life cycle of big data, there are security threats and privacy leakage risks at each processing stage [51,75,76]. The security protection analysis of big data for food is shown in Table 2. Data encryption is one of the effective methods for protecting data security. Rivest [77] proposed a privacy homomorphic encryption that would delegate part of a complex operations to a third party, directly operating on the ciphertext, who would return the results without disclosing of information. Yao et al. [78] proposed a secure multiparty computing scheme (SMC), in which all participants realize collaborative computing, and the privacy of all parties is protected, which eliminates the need for trusted third parties. However, ciphertexts have a serious impact on data readability. The strongly robust blockchain has anti-network attack, anti-eavesdropping, anti-tampering and anonymity features, that can protect the security and reliability of data [79]. Combining blockchain with an access control algorithm, Uchibeke et al. [80] proposed that data owners independently manage their data and prevent data leakage. However, blockchain technology still needs to be studied for security and work efficiency [81]; thus, research into big data security and privacy protection technology has become an important research area in the food field.

**Table 2.** Analysis of data security protection technology in the whole life cycle of food data.



dustry can global food demand be met. [89]. However, resource waste and foodborne diseases are key factors restricting this sustainable development: excessive chemical residue in crops from the of chemical fertilizers and pesticides [90]; perishable food loss in developing countries and enormous food waste in developed countries [91]; high energy consumption and pollution from food processing and transportation; and the discarding of potentially contaminated food because of the iinability to quickly and efficiently trace the source of a contamination. Therefore, the economic and environmental sustainability of stakeholders are the core factors for promoting the sustainable development of the food industry chain.
