Assessing the Implications of Blockchain in the Wine Supply Chain: Evidence from Three Italian Companies

Abstract

In wine supply chains some pilot Blockchain-based projects have been developed. They promise to enable better traceability, thus fronting counterfeiting and allowing consumers to verify the origin and the authenticity of every bottle. Despite expectations are high, the implications of Blockchain (BC) implementation are still underinvestigated. This study aims to provide a state-of-the-art discussion on the actual use of BC technology to face the counterfeiting problem in the wine supply chain. By comparing the BC solutions implemented by three Italian winemakers the paper demonstrates that actually wine companies are far from exploiting this technology to the maximum potential, because it is mainly used as a communication instrument. A further preliminary finding concerns the relationship between the wine price-quality positioning and the configuration of BC solutions, both at the technological and organizational level, to properly front counterfeiting.