From Farm to Fork: Securing the Food Supply Chain with Blockchain and TinyML

With the gradual increase in the food processing industry and elongation of the food supply chain, Food Safety has become an essential and important right for the consumers

- Kushagra Agrawal

Despite, various measures taken in accordance to secure this food supply chain such as advances in science and innovation, still foodborne infections have become a serious problem that is being faced by the entire world. As per the World Health Organization in the South-East Asia region, approximately 150 million people fell ill due to foodborne disease in 2010. The affected population was comprised 40% of children who were below 5 years of age then [1]. Also, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention abbreviated as CDC reported a death of around 48 million people every year due to contaminated food-ingestion in the United States [2].

Citing Scharff's Research, the financial impact that United States suffered due to food-borne illness was estimated to be somewhere around $55.5 billion [3]. The hospitalization costs, economic loses, loss of human resources, decreased productivity and a various other factors are accountable for the estimated figure. Various occurrences made the humans aware of food safety like detection of Horse DNA in frozen beef burgers, which was a case of meet adulteration to lower the production cost. One Notable occurrence was the 2008 Chinese Milk Scandal that involved contamination of infant formula and dairy products with melamine for infants, which led to hospitalization and deaths of many infants [4].