BeefLedger: Cross-Border Beef Supply Chain Based on Blockchain Technology

Food safety and fraud were long-standing issues in China. For some imported products, such as Australian beef steak, food fraud could be a massive issue: consumers could purchase the wrong or even harmful products, and legitimate brands subsequently lost sales and reputation. BeefLedger Ltd. (BeefLedger) was an Australian blockchain start-up company that aimed to solve these issues by using blockchain technology to supply authentic beef products to customers in China and elsewhere. The technology also significantly improved transparency in the beef supply chain. Since 2017, BeefLedger had gained important experience in this area and achieved a certain level of success.

The concept of blockchain, proposed in late 2008 and used successfully used in finance since then, was still in its infancy in other areas. The next promising field to adopt blockchain was supply chain management, where the technology had the potential to revolutionize the supply chain with its unique functions, including immutability and decentralization. However, many challenges emerged for BeefLedger during blockchain implementation—especially in early 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and Australia–China tensions. BeefLedger now had to determine how to handle these recent challenges.