Strengthening Exports for Unifloral Honey through E-traceability

Abstract

The food industry is becoming more consumer-oriented today. Honey is being increasingly consumed for its high nutritive value and its immense contribution to human health. Globally, the annual honey production is about 1.2 million tons which account for about 1% of the total sugar production. Economically developed countries have a higher consumption rate of honey. Getting unifloral honey consistently from uncultivated sources is relatively rare in occurrence, making it a high-value commercial product which is in huge demand. However, a large number of adulteration cases in honey have been observed hampering the otherwise high potential of this food commodity. Failure to meet the prescribed quality standards, as suggested by the International Honey Commission, has created an urgent need for employing easy and accurate techniques for detecting adulteration. Honey supply chain comprises of multiple entities from producers i.e. beekeepers/farmers to end consumers. The various entities work together to bring the premium quality of honey on the market. This kind of system is aimed at ensuring speed, cost, and system efficiency in the supply chain. This has necessitated countries to maintain transparency and visibility in the entire supply chain. Implementation of food safety systems such as Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) and exporters’ access to market information and on their marketing know-how has become a crucial content in addressing food safety issues. The study at IIT Delhi aims to use blockchain technology to track the supply chain of unifloral Honey. This research focusses on the utilization and development of blockchain technology and thus analyze its usage in building the unifloral honey supply chain traceability system. This would effectively guarantee the food safety issues in Indian honey by gathering, transferring and sharing the authentic data of honey in production, processing, distribution and selling links