Modern food supply chains are complex and contain numerous stakeholders with many outsourced procedures such as food product storage and transportation services, resulting in a lack of communication between stakeholders who individually focus on a narrow area of food production. As food supply chains become more complex, the importance of food production transparency increases.

Beyond the increased interest in transparency expressed by consumers, several factors contribute to the need for transparency such as the increase in global population, outbreaks of food illness, food adulteration cases, and food fraud. In addition to these issues, food supply chains are host to inefficiencies that can lead to wasting of large quantities of food.

It is clear that for such an agri-food system to thrive, consumers must have improved access to healthy, sustainable, and affordable food with transparent information regarding food integrity and true value to make the improved food choices that are required to increase demand. Providing increased transparency is an important part of achieving this aim.