The prevention of food loss throughout the supply chain, including manufacturers, has become a major challenge for a number of organisations. In addition, consumers are also increasingly interested in the authenticity of food and want to ensure that they receive the right quality of food. To address this issue, there is a need for reliable and robust tools to be available in the Industry 4.0 era that can trace the food throughout the supply chain from the farm through processing until it reaches the customer and, thus, ensure transparency. Using the people, process, and technology (PPT) model, this paper develops a blockchain-enabled food supply chain framework including the future opportunities and the present impediments based on the systematic literature review and semi-structured case interviews from the context of emerging economies. The study investigates the suitability of blockchain technology in resolving major challenges, such as traceability, trust, and accountability in the food industry. The study further paves the way for future researchers to address the technological and people-related challenges in the Industry 4.0 era to mitigate the emerging problems in the food sector. Interestingly, we did not find many issues in process- and performance-related aspects. The study offers empirical evidence of blockchain technology implementation in the Industry 4.0 era that opens up the discussion for future researchers and lists the potential threats.

Industry 4.0 is originally a future vision described in the high-tech strategy of the German government that is conceived upon information and communication technologies like Cyber-Physical Systems, Internet of Things, Physical Internet, and Internet of Services to achieve a high degree of flexibility in production (individualized mass production), higher productivity rates through real-time monitoring and diagnosis, and a lower wastage rate of material in production. An important part of the tasks in the preparation for Industry 4.0 is the adaption of the higher education to the requirements of this vision, in particular the engineering education. In this work, we introduce a road map consisting of three pillars describing the changes/enhancements to be conducted in the areas of curriculum development, lab concept, and student club activities. We also report our current application of this road map at the Turkish German University, Istanbul.

The growing importance of the circular economy has emphasised optimal utilisation of resources within the constraints of economic development and protection of the environment. Digital technologies associated with Industry 4.0, such as blockchain, facilitate the implementation of circular economy principles throughout the supply chain. However, because blockchain implementation in the supply chain is still in the early stages, real‐world examples of the blockchain‐based circular supply chains (CSCs) are limited. The principal purpose of the paper is to examine the critical success factors (CSFs) for implementing blockchain‐based CSCs. Following that, 10 CSFs are identified through a short systematic literature review, and then, the integrated fuzzy cognitive mapping and fuzzy best‐worst method (FCM‐FBWM) is implemented to examine CSFs for the blockchain‐based CSC. The study's main findings demonstrate that network collaboration is the best CSF, while the shared circular economy toolbox is counted worst of all. This research enriches the literature by identifying the CSFs for implementing blockchain‐enabled CSCs to address the lack of a suitable decision‐making framework that assists managers in comprehending how blockchain technology can be adopted in the circular economy context. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed, offering new insights into the measures necessary to ensure successful blockchain implementations in CSCs.