Food tracking and blockchain-induced knowledge: a corporate social responsibility tool for sustainable decision-making

Abstract

Purpose

In the disruptive technologies era, the lack of convincing business cases on blockchain (BC) adoption about food supply chain, the existence of uncertainties and barriers to adoption due to knowledge scarcity on characteristics as well as the potentialities and risks involved in it, have triggered the need to investigate the first multinational BC adoption for food supply chain in Europe, to consider how it can guarantee knowledge for the consumption/purchase decision-making and the creation-mechanism of consciousness for sustainable behavioral choice.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors provide a field exploratory analysis based on customers' perceptions and real knowledge about BC (as a knowledge-constructive tool) in the food and beverage sector. This connected with the need for an informed context, favoring sustainable conscious decision-making related to both the food chain and innovation acceptance. This analysis included the use of innovation acceptance as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategic orientation through a survey- and interview-based field analysis (80 respondents).

Findings

The findings of this study can be considered as antecedents of innovation acceptance in the sector. The analysis assesses consumers' scarce knowledge and perceptions on the BC system, the scarce usage level and the higher acquiring propensity for traceable foodstuffs generating bi-directional/dimensional value, considering that consumption habits could change through security and certainty antecedents and induced knowledge provided by external technological intervention.

Originality/value

By trying to match innovation and the knowledge-construction need as a vehicle for acceptance, the theoretical contribution would empower the literature on food traceability from the perspective of strategic BC application through a from-knowledge-to-knowledge strategy.

Citation

Rainero, C. and Modarelli, G. (2021), "Food tracking and blockchain-induced knowledge: a corporate social responsibility tool for sustainable decision-making", British Food Journal, Vol. 123 No. 12, pp. 4284-4308. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-10-2020-0921