INNOVASIE | INNOVATION
Label Insight and the Food
Marketing Institute Survey
Would you switch to a brand that
provides more in-depth product
information, beyond what's provided
on the physical label?
No
Yes
No
Yes
2016
2018
Source: https://medium.com/te-food/food-trace-
ability-trends-to-watch-in-2019-179a00b3b625
THE EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGY
AND MEDIA
Following the media, you would think that
the number of outbreaks and food fraud
has been growing during recent years. In
reality, this is the result of two advance-
ments:
Thanks to technological advance-
ments, cheaper and more accurate
inspection results reveal more cases of
contamination.
Meanwhile, wide range online media
access and eye-catching headlines
result in growing consumer attention.
Combined with massive social media
sharing, these articles are spreading
rapidly.
People are simply seeing more cases to
be revealed, and due to emotional journal-
ism, their dissatisfaction grows rapidly.
Google search trends also show that
whenever an outbreak is published or a
food fraud is revealed, there is an enor-
mous growth in related searches.
It seems like consumers are getting
confused about food related information.
In a survey, 80% of consumers said there
is a lot of conflicting information about
what foods to eat or avoid.
It is expected that this trend will con-
tinue in 2019, as media outlets see that
people respond actively to these topics
and the number of potential cases are
growing. This presents a demand for
technology solutions which provide clear
product information.
BLOCKCHAIN GAINING GROUND
During 2018, various Blockchain solutions
in the agricultural value chain came into
play to try and address the current con-
sumer dissatisfaction. While blockchain
cannot solve all problems on its own, it is
an important step forward.
It is believed that food traceability is on
the verge of a technological shift on each
front:
Internet of Things (IoT) technology
becomes cheaper, more reliable and
easier to use, replacing more tasks
from weight measurement to tempera-
ture monitoring. This will lead to “trust
less” data collection.
Data analysis
Artificial intelligence and big data tech-
nologies will enable food companies
and authorities to analyse supply chain
activities in depth to find anomalies.
DATA PROCESSING AND STORAGE
Blockchain-based data processing
automations and the immutable distri-
buted ledger technology will complete
the “trust less” supply chain idea,
where no single company or person
needs to be trusted to ensure that the
data is genuine and correct.
Abbreviated from original article: https://
medium.com/te-food/
To read more about this topic:
https://medium.com/te-food/food-
traceability-trends-to-watch-in-
2019-179a00b3b625
Data collection
SENWES SCENARIO | HERFS • AUTUMN 2019
13