Blockchain Enabled Traceability System for Verifiable Halal Meat: Enhancing Transparency and Trust in Food Logistics

Halal verifiability in the food industry remains a challenge. Many factories have periodic audits of their factories to make sure standards are upheld. However, these are snapshots of the facilities as audits are not taking day to day, in addition to the audits being of a subjective nature. This lack of transparency can lead to consumer trust falling in meat processing plants. To address this gap in lack of consumer trust, we propose a blockchain-enabled meat traceability system that tracks different parts of meat production in meat processing plants. This will improve transparency and trust as this system can be automated using IOT and Smart Contracts to receive verification of actions that have been done correctly and shown to end consumers so he/she can make their own decision. We made a functional prototype for looking at the feasibility of the blockchain system. This study proposed the use of a website and mobile application to allow access to the blockchain. The mobile application also allows QR code scanning for easy looking up records in blockchain. In blockchain, hashing was used for implementing data integrity and immutability of records. The study also demonstrates how religious requirements can be implemented using Smart Contracts and IOT devices to achieve automated results based on actions like phrase reciting without human intervention. Implementing blockchain, Smart Contracts, and IOT at a large scale do have some challenges like scalability, data storage, privacy, and governance. The prototype created shows the technical feasibility of the project requiring regulatory collaborations from all stakeholders to become a transparent consumer powered meat verification system.