In recent years, traceability systems have been developed as practical tools for improving supply chain (SC) transparency and visibility, especially in health and safety-sensitive sectors like food and pharmaceuticals. Blockchain-related SC traceability research has received significant attention during the last several years, and arguably blockchain is currently the most promising technology for providing traceability-related services in SC networks. This paper provides a systematic literature review of the various technical implementation aspects of blockchain-enabled SC traceability systems. We apply different drivers for classifying the selected literature, such as (a) the various domains of the available blockchain-enabled SC traceability systems and relevant methodologies applied; (b) the implementation maturity of these traceability systems along with technical implementation details; and (c) the sustainability perspective (economic, environmental, social) prevalent to these implementations. We provide key takeaways regarding the open issues and challenges of current blockchain traceability implementations and fruitful future research areas. Despite the significant volume and plethora of blockchain-enabled SC traceability systems, academia has so far focused on unstructured experimentation of blockchain-associated SC traceability solutions, and there is a clear need for developing and testing real-life traceability solutions, especially taking into account feasibility and cost-related SC aspects.

During this pandemic crisis, supply chain management (SCM) has emerged as a critical source of competitive advantage driving organizational performance, especially in the agri-food sector, since public health and consumers’ confidence as well as firms’ survival depend on the effectiveness of supply chain networks. This study adopts two central SCM practices, namely strategic suppliers’ partnerships and partners’ information quality & sharing and tests their relationships with competitive advantage (quality, process flexibility, and time to market) and business performance (profitability and market share), based on an empirical study of 300 enterprises in the agri-food sector in Greece. After data collection, we deploy a diagnostic-exploratory model, utilizing fuzzy cognitive mapping, with agent-based modeling following up for development for data prediction and simulation. Consequently, we found that supply chain firms’ compelling and robust relationships with supply chain partners and suppliers can promote their profitability and market share. Relationships of this kind focus on quality information sharing and are strongly connected with businesses’ quality, process flexibility, and time to market competitive capabilities. Hence, our study provides salutary info to supply chain firms regarding potential implementation to existing and new collaborators.