# Digitalization and Future Agro-Food Supply Chain Management: A Literature-Based Implications
## 4 Summary and Implications  
The papers reviewed here indicated that the use of digital technologies such as blockchain, IoT, big-data analytics, AI, and ICT can act as enablers for sustainable transformation of the food system. Most of the papers reviewed (Table 2, Figure 4) mentioned the benefits of digitalization of the food system in achieving traceability, an important issue that provides consumers with information about the origin of the food products. This includes information about where, when, and how a product is produced, its nutritional content, transformation/value addition steps along the food chain, the nature of the food, its shelf-life, and the ability to track its route through the food chain. As traceability is associated with critical consumption characteristics of food, such as safety, quality, and nutritional content, it is an important concept for all stakeholders in the food industry. Therefore, achieving food traceability could provide a competitive advantage for agro-food supply chain actors. It could also provide a number of other benefits, including the ability to predict food perishability and manage food losses/waste; reduced costs (e.g., inventory carrying costs) and higher efficiency; good customer relationships and marketability as a result of confidence in the food; and minimized legal liability associated with risks related to food hazards from consumption of contaminated food and/or wrongly labeled food products. Note that legal liability may arise not only from the sale of contaminated food but also from the sale of wrongly labeled food items. For instance, horse meat labeled as beef in the food scandal of 2013 [106], which had catastrophic economic implications for food chain actors in the UK and across Europe, arose from fraudulent activity in the food chain, which indicates how deception in food chains and lack of appropriate tracking of foodstuffs can create trouble for the whole food system. Central to food system traceability is food system information collection, processing, and real-time interchange. The papers reviewed reported particular benefits from the use of digital technologies such as blockchain, IoT, and ICT in this regard. Besides enabling traceability, use of the digital technologies in the food system was reported to provide a way forward for a sustainable food system (Table 3, Figure 4). Sustainable food system is defined by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as a \"food system that delivers food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social, and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for the future generations are not compromised\" [107]. According to that definition, a food system is sustainable when it fulfills three sustainability requirements: economic sustainability (the food system is profitable for actors throughout); social sustainability (the food system has broad-based benefits for society); and environmental sustainability (the food system has positive or neutral impacts on the natural environment). Digitalization of the food system was also seen as very valuable in improving some other key performance parameters along the food chain, such as productivity, profitability, quality and safety, resilience to crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and profitability, and in enabling food supply chain management in risk management, coordination, and trustful networking (Table 4, Figure 4). Some of the papers reviewed [108; 104; 109; 110; 58; 111] reported the potential of digitalization in reducing food waste, a critical issue in sustainable food systems transition and in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 12.3). The papers reviewed demonstrated the benefit of digitalization of the food system for the overall food system and for specific food commodities. However, the global distribution of digitalization applications and of related scientific research was concentrated in developed countries in Europe, Asia, and USA.