Abstract
The complexity of contemporary supply chains and the rise in foodborne illness cases have made ensuring food safety and traceability a top responsibility on a worldwide scale. Traditional traceability systems are prone to data tampering, fragmentation, and limited compatibility. Public blockchains have scalability, latency, and privacy problems that limit their use in real-time food safety systems, despite the fact that blockchain provides a secure data structure. Using Hyperledger Fabric, GS1 EPCIS standards, and Internet of Things-enabled environmental sensors, this paper suggests a private blockchain-based food safety monitoring system. To guarantee fault-tolerant, high-throughput processing in a permissioned blockchain setting, a Raft consensus mechanism was used. Hyperledger Caliper was used to benchmark the system once it was deployed with four nodes. According to experimental data, transaction throughput peaked at 230.2 TPS and averaged 207.4 ± 10.2 TPS. As the network grew from two to four nodes, latency increased somewhat from 259.3 ± 9.5 ms to 278.7 ± 9.1 ms, while block finalization time stayed below 3.184 ± 0.113 s. Over 114,925 documented transactions, data integrity was confirmed to be flawless. These results demonstrate that private blockchain technology can provide effective, scalable, and impenetrable food traceability, boosting openness and confidence throughout food networks.