Trustworthy last-mile food delivery: Integrating IoT sensors with blockchain incentives

Perishable foods are extremely vulnerable to ambient conditions during last-mile transportation, where fluctuations in temperature and humidity can severely affect their safety and quality. This challenge is especially pronounced in community-led and volunteer-run delivery networks, such as food bank distribution systems, where real-time quality monitoring is typically absent, and traditional incentive structures often fail to provide transparency, fairness, and accountability. To overcome these limitations, this research introduces a trustworthy last-mile food delivery framework that closely combines IoT-based environmental monitoring with a blockchain-powered incentive scheme. IoT-equipped delivery containers constantly track temperature and humidity throughout transport, while a policy evaluation engine checks whether predefined quality constraints are being met. Verified quality outcomes are secured on a consortium blockchain via smart contracts, providing tamper-proof tracking of service performance and transparent distribution of rewards. In contrast to conventional reward models, the proposed framework explicitly links volunteer incentives to verified adherence to food quality standards, promoting careful handling and long-term engagement. Comprehensive sensor information and analytics are stored off-chain to support scalability, with cryptographic commitments guaranteeing the integrity and auditability of the data. By combining quality-focused monitoring with immutable, trust-preserving incentives, the proposed system enhances food safety, strengthens volunteer participation, and improves transparency in last-mile delivery for food banks and community-driven food distribution networks.