Tracing farm to fork and preventing plagiarism

A Danish project is developing technologies and methods that can both document a food product’s path from farm to fork and help prevent plagiarism.

Headed by the National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark, the project is developing blockchain solutions that will enable small- and medium-sized food producers in Denmark to document and create transparency around the production, safety and distribution of their goods.

By using blockchain technology, the project will allow a selected group of members to exchange information that cannot be copied or manipulated by others without it being detected.

The technologies being developed could also be possibly used to form the basis for labelling schemes that guarantee the authenticity of food products, according to Henning Høgh Jensen, Head of Division at the National Food Institute and the project manager.

“Blockchain technology makes it possible to establish a platform for sharing data across the entire farm-to-fork chain in a safe and efficient manner. The finance industry has successfully adopted the new technology, and we believe that it’s time now for the food industry to make use of it,” said Henning Høgh Jensen.

Called Bottom-up blockchain value chains in the food sector, the project is carried out by the Technical University of Denmark, the Danish innovation centre in Silicon Valley and The Danish Industry Foundation.

The project is centred around the companies’ current needs and challenges. As such, the researchers will design solutions that replace some of the current work and documentation processes with a more secure technology. The solution will also be able to incorporate the documentation requirements that export markets and authorities currently impose on the companies.

Aimed to assist small and medium-sized Danish companies, the project focuses on up-market products which are more vulnerable to plagiarism. As such, the new project will design the blockchain solutions so they also contain documentation in relation to the raw materials’ authenticity, which will particularly be of value to export companies.

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