Applications of blockchain technology for enhancing traceability and food safety management in the beef supply chain

The globalization of agri-food supply chains has heightened consumer demand for transparency, accountability, and food safety, particularly in high-value sectors such as beef. Traditional centralized traceability systems face persistent challenges, including fragmented data, fraud risks, and delayed recall responses. Blockchain technology (BCT) emerges as a transformative solution, offering a decentralized, immutable, and transparent permissioned ledger capable of addressing these systemic weaknesses. This review comprehensively examines the application of BCT in the beef supply chain. Key findings indicate that blockchain’s core attributes—decentralization, immutability, and a shared, auditable ledger—enable robust farm-to-fork tracking, deter food fraud, and accelerate targeted product recalls. Separately, when integrated with the Internet of Things (IoT) for automated, tamper-resistant data capture and with Artificial Intelligence (AI) for predictive analytics, deployments can further improve cold-chain assurance and enable early warning of spoilage or non-compliance. However, widespread adoption faces considerable hurdles, including technical challenges related to scalability and interoperability, economic considerations regarding implementation costs, organizational resistance to change, and the need for clear regulatory frameworks and industry-wide data standards. These constraints are often more acute in low- and middle-income countries, where smallholders face higher relative onboarding costs, gaps in digital infrastructure and standards, and limited institutional capacity for implementation. Drawing on established pilots—such as Walmart’s IBM Food Trust deployment that reduced trace-back time from nearly seven days to 2.2 seconds, JD.com and Kerchin’s QR-code-enabled beef traceability system for Chinese consumers, and JBS’s blockchain-based Transparent Livestock Farming Platform for supplier monitoring—this review highlights blockchain’s practical feasibility in real-world beef supply chains. Ultimately, blockchain offers a profound opportunity to enhance beef safety, quality, and trust, while also underscoring the need for concerted research efforts and multi-stakeholder collaboration to overcome barriers and fully realize its capabilities.