IoT Technology as an Effective Strategy Enhances Food Authentication for Current Fresh Fruit Supply Chain

With trade globalization, food fraud such as tampering, substituting, and falsifying, challenges human health and the management of food supply chain. As a food type that only processed at primary level, the authenticity of fruit supply information has become a guarantee for its edible safety. This review covers recent applications of IoT technologies in fresh fruit supply chain (FFSC) management, focusing on their potential to authenticate fruit information, predict shelf-life, and improve supply chain efficiency. Besides, the technical evaluation and application barrier analysis are also conducted. Results showed that IoT can comprehensively improve the service level of the FFSC. Concretely, wireless sensors can record the whole supply information of fruits on cultivation, picking, processing, and transportation. Moreover, fruit quality authentication and shelf-life prediction are carried out by mathematical coupling models in remote monitoring database. Such information can be furtherly distributed and encrypted through blockchain and other encryption techniques, resulting in secure, permanent, and immutable food authentication information, thereby greatly avoiding the food fraud behaviors. However, the application of these emerging technologies still faces challenges of technical obstacles, infrastructure construction, and model optimization for commercial use.