Food Packaging Data Hash Trees for Tamper-Proof Traceability

The patent applies preliminary action by creating cryptographic hash values of food safety data records at the point of generation and storing them in a distributed ledger before the data leaves the packaging machine. This preliminary hashing and immutability establishment ensures that the data cannot be tampered with later, while still maintaining complete tracking of all food safety parameters throughout the supply chain.

The patent extracts only the essential cryptographic hash values and critical food safety parameters from the complete data set, storing these condensed representations in the distributed ledger. The full detailed data remains locally at the packaging machine or in centralized databases, allowing verification without transmitting all raw data over networks, thus improving network efficiency while maintaining data availability for safety checks.

The patent segments the verification process into distributed nodes across the supply chain, where each participant (packaging machine, processor, distributor, retailer) maintains a copy of the distributed ledger and can independently verify food safety data. This segmentation eliminates single points of failure and vulnerability while maintaining verification speed through parallel validation across multiple nodes simultaneously.