Designing a Transparent Distributed Systems for Halal Supply Chains Using Blockchain Technology

Abstract

Halal food is food in which its halalness status is regulated by a shariah institution, which is normally designated by the government. The halal status of food should be traced starting from raw materials, processing, packaging, transportation and distribution processes to end consumers. This is to make sure that halal food is free from any contamination that may change its halal status. The problem is the difficulty of tracing halal food along the supply chain as the supply chain information from the upstream to downstream in the food industry is not transparent. Currently, food tracking systems are a centralized system, where information about food status is only available to those who control the information. To improve the transparency of the food status and to increase trust from customers, a distributed and transparent system, where many parties can access the food status any time, is needed. Blockchain technology can be applied to help track the halalness status of food along its supply chain. As blockchain is inherently distributed and transparent, hence a distributed system can be developed by incorporating blockchain technology for tracking food status. This paper proposes a distributed system for tracing halal food along its supply chains using blockchain technology. This system is expected to support transparency, neutrality.