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The design of an electronic pedigree system for food safety

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Abstract

The problem of food safety is a critical issue in recent years. To address the issue, the technologies of the Internet of Things are used to offer the possibilities to easily track the processes in the production, storage, transportation, sale, and even using phases of foods. This paper, therefore, introduces the design of an electronic pedigree system for food safety, which uses electronic pedigrees to enhance the safety of food supply. The system implements an extension of the pedigree standard of EPCglobal, and offers a more trustworthily tracking service to monitor and supervise the production and supply of food. We discuss the key issues of the design, and implement a prototype to evaluate the feasibility of the design. Finally, we analyze the trustworthiness assurance and security of our electronic pedigree system.

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Acknowledgment

This paper is supported by the 863 project (Grant NO: 2011AA100701), the Project-sponsored by SRF for ROCS, SEM, and the project of Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (Grant NO: 12ZR1402600). The corresponding author is Lirong Zheng. The documents can be viewed at http://crypto.fudan.edu.cn/epedigree/homepage.html. Thank Ms. Min Li for her English polish.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software School, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Weili Han, Yun Gu, Wei Wang, Yin Zhang & Yuliang Yin

  2. School of Information Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Junyu Wang & Li-Rong Zheng

Authors
  1. Weili Han
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  2. Yun Gu
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  3. Wei Wang
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  4. Yin Zhang
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  5. Yuliang Yin
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  6. Junyu Wang
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  7. Li-Rong Zheng
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Li-Rong Zheng.

Appendix A: Pedigree types in the previous pedigree standard of EPCglobal

Appendix A: Pedigree types in the previous pedigree standard of EPCglobal

Initial pedigree

This kind of electronic pedigree is used to describe the initial condition of the products. When a product is produced, its initial pedigree should be generated. Initial pedigree includes a product’s serial number and its initial information. Environment pedigrees and birth pedigrees can be related to initial pedigrees, which record the initial environment and birth condition of the product.

Repacking pedigree

This kind of electronic pedigree is always used to record the repacking information. When a product is split into several smaller products or several products are merged into one product, a repacking pedigree is required. Repacking pedigree includes the repacking information such as repacking time and location. Besides, the previous pedigree’s identifier should be related to the new repacking pedigrees so that we can trace the complete product information through it.

Alt pedigree

This kind of electronic pedigree is used to link accessories. Other electronic pedigrees can only contain word information. But sometimes pictures, audio or video are necessary. Besides, in some cases, certificates with much data need to be related into an electronic pedigree while the amount of information in an electronic pedigree is limited. So we use the alt pedigrees to link the accessories.

Shipped pedigree

This kind of electronic pedigree is used to record the shipping information. When the present company ships the products to another company, shipped pedigree should be generated. The shipped pedigree includes shipping time, location, receiver and other shipping information.

Received pedigree

This kind of electronic pedigree is used to record the receiving information. When the company receives products, their received pedigrees should be generated. The received pedigree includes receiving time, location, recipient and other receiving information.

Unsigned received pedigree

This kind of electronic pedigree is similar to the received pedigree, except that it has not a digital signature. In some cases, the product is refused by other companies for some reasons after shipment. It means the company will generate a received electronic pedigree based on a shipped pedigree which is generated by the same company. So the digital signature is redundant since the product is always under the control of the present company. In this case, we may generate an unsigned received pedigree instead of a received pedigree.

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Han, W., Gu, Y., Wang, W. et al. The design of an electronic pedigree system for food safety. Inf Syst Front 17, 275–287 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-012-9372-y

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