Blockchain-Based Product Traceability Beyond Proof of Existence

Contemporary consumers are demanding greater visibility in products they consume, and practices used to produce them. Blockchain-based product traceability solutions attempt to integrate the data silos of suppliers into an immutable and distributed ledger to provide consumers with a transparent and trustworthy system to trace back a product at hand. A common limitation of these solutions is the use of blockchain to provide only the proof of existence of data. We propose a solution where data related to enforcement of product-quality specifications and production limits, merging and splitting products as batches, and mixing of ingredients are handled within the block-chain itself to provide greater consistency, transparency, and trust. Our solution is based on a graph data structure built into the blockchain nodes, smart contracts, and facilitation of different roles in a supply chain. We demonstrate the utility of the proposed solution by implementing it on the Hyperledger Fabric platform. Performance results confirmed that both the graph data structure and blockchain has acceptable throughput and latency characteristics.