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1. Introduction
Over the past decade, a series of meat scandals in Europe (e.g. 2013 horse meat scandal, 2008 Irish pork crisis) has highlighted the importance of meat safety and quality regulations for consumers. Brazil’s meat scandal of early 2017 had a dramatic impact on the European Union also, as the EU is the largest importer of Brazilian poultry (Bloomberg, 2017). Such crises also reiterate the need for traceability and transparency systems (TTSs) in food supply chains.
In response, this paper proposes a potential solution to traceability issues in the meat supply chain (e.g. window dressing, information fraud): the service innovation of blockchain technology (BCT) (Kumar, 2016; Lemieux, 2016). This decentralized, online ledger aims to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions and ease traceability by securely storing information that has been approved by all connected parties (Kumar, 2016; Lemieux, 2016). Due to the fact that BCT is at a very early stage of development, no uniform definition does exist, yet (Lemieux, 2016). Condos et al. (2016) define BCT as an electronic ledger for digital data sets, events or transactions, which are governed via the participants of a widespread computer network.
This study represents the first empirical attempt to evaluate the potential of a TTS based on BCT from a holistic perspective including all related supply chain stakeholders (SCSs) (i.e. farmers, butchers, retailers, consumers, government officials and third-party transparency service providers (3pTSP)). Previous studies have established the requirements of a complete and credible TTS but failed to link these features to BCT, despite the clear match of characteristics (Kassahun et al., 2014; Trienekens et al., 2011). Furthermore, most meat traceability studies are relatively outdated and conducted in the USA in the early 2000s without touching upon the proposed link to BCT (e.g. Dickinson and von Bailey, 2002; Verbeke and Ward, 2006).
By investigating existing TTSs (i.e. certification labels) and the potential role of BCT as a TTS, according to different SCSs in the meat industry, this in-depth investigation offers a holistic picture of the various perspectives involved and thus enhances the awareness of BCT as a TTS, such that it may serve as a basis for its future development and discussion. The analysis of the complexity of BCT also may help supply chain managers understand its spectrum,...