Theresa Lin | Food Bio: digital solution to ensure food quality

 
Food Bio serves as a solution, among many, to ensure food quality and food safety for consumers. It is a mobile-responsive website that allows consumers to quickly view detailed information on farm produce such as the origin source, images and videos, harvest and package date, pesticide usage, and farming method. This project aims to provide transparency to consumers in an online environment.
Food fraud has been a prevalent problem found globally throughout history and can be found in different varieties of food and produce. These incidents cause consumers to become wary of factors that influence food quality. With the recent Covid-19 pandemic, it has further raised awareness to food freshness and safety. Thus, this project was inspired by the research question: How can consumers make judgments about the freshness of food in an online environment?

Investigation on food devices, specifically FOODsniffer and Changhong H2, Taobao live streams on food products, and blockchain technology that combines QR codes were conducted for this research. Both FOODsniffer and Changhong H2 are handheld devices that analyze the freshness and chemical makeup of food.

Taobao live streaming platforms provide consumers with interactive real-time feedback video. The hosts are able to show off the features and place of origin of the product, which provides transparency.

Many blockchain technologies utilized in food traceability are paired with QR codes. By scanning the QR codes, users are able to access tamper-proof data that may include storage temperature, sample at arrival, and quality measure.

Food Bio attempts to combine these three aspects. This project functions as a handheld device as it is viewed on a smartphone. Similar to Taobao live streams, the images and videos provided for each product helps users better visualize the product. Similar to blockchain technology that is combined with QR codes, Food Bio also allows consumers to view information such as harvest and package date, farming method, and pesticide usage simply by scanning a QR code.

The project will be further developed to explore the farmer’s side to allow them to input information onto the website to add products. Additionally, over time, Food Bio is expected to be implemented across many food products, not only farm produce, and across many producers. Eventually Food Bio will be easily applicable and serve to provide a transparent and safe online environment for many consumers and producers alike.