Blockchain-enabled Consumer Engagement: An Emerging Pandora to Safer Food and Enhanced Consumer Trust? (Chinese and English versions)

Currently, there is a growing call for a co-governance approach that includes consumers in food safety governance. To address this, corporations have implemented decentralised digital food traceability systems based on blockchain. Many argue that this technology will lead to enhanced consumer trust in food safety governance through greater consumer engagement. In this regard, this paper examines factors that influence consumer engagement and trust in food safety governance, mobilising interdisciplinary literature from the social sciences, economics and food safety governance. By doing so, it explores the implications of the implementation of blockchain as a means of enhancing consumer trust. The paper raises critical questions on a global scale and offers a social science and wider empirical perspective that has received less attention. To further investigate the effects of blockchain on consumer trust in the food supply chain, it proposes a research agenda that includes theoretical and empirical research.