A Blockchain-Based Fish Supply Chain Framework for Maintaining Fish Quality and Authenticity

Abstract

Fish Supply Chain (FSC) industry faces a significant challenge in terms of maintaining fish quality and authenticity throughout the chain. The main goal of modern FSC systems is tracking and tracing the fish products at each stage, from harvester to consumer, while also ensuring their quality and authenticity. Integrating FSC with new technologies, such as Blockchain (BC), Artificial intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things (IoT), enhances fish product traceability, authenticity, visibility, and security. In this work, we propose a BC-based FSC framework characterized by a layered architecture consisting of a SC layer, an IoT layer, and a BC layer. BC enhances traceability, ensures transparency, and facilitates automation as well as incorporates distributed ledger technology (DLT) that ensures the integrity and security of FSC data. We integrate an innovative AI-based hand-held device, a Quality, Adulteration & Traceability (QAT) device, that is developed by our team to identify fish species and assess fish quality. We leverage the key features of BC and smart contracts, deployed over the Ethereum platform, to support the proposed framework. This integration, alongside QAT technology, is introduced to enhance efficiency and transparency within FSC processes. Extensive validation of smart contracts is conducted to prove its practical feasibility.