Traceability, accurate data and modern technologies

Real-time track-and-trace solutions can ensure that a food product is accurately tracked at every stage of the supply chain but this is only useful if the data is reliable, has been accurately gathered and has not been tampered with.

In the food industry the supply chain is frequently long and particularly complex. Just think about a hamburger: along with the meat there can be 20 other ingredients. Each of these needs its own traceability codes and the manufacturer is obliged to keep the inventory of all these codes. To these are added the codes related to the processing time, to the package, to the expiry time, to the containers in which the products have been carried, to the distribution places etc. To compound this, the purchasing of raw materials from a third-party supplier has to be based on mutual trust. There are no 100% reliable methods to control the content of all the merchandise all the time.

In 2011 the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) led two pilot programs for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) designed to test and study various product tracing systems. The purpose of these pilots was to identify methods to rapidly and effectively trace food products throughout the supply chain so that, during a food-related outbreak, products could be quickly identified and removed from the marketplace, which would ultimately help minimise the number of consumers affected by a contaminated product. Various product tracing practices for fresh produce and processed foods were studied.

Tomatoes were selected for the fresh produce pilot and foods consisting of chicken, peanuts and/or spices were selected for the processed food pilot. Foods selected for the pilots had been associated with outbreaks between 2005 and 2010. Key findings from IFT’s analysis of current product tracing practices indicate the following challenges associated with outbreak investigations:

• Tedious and difficult to sort through hundreds of pages of documents.
• Confusion when data definition is lacking.
• Inconsistent item descriptions.
• Wrong or incomplete information cause delays.
• Companies operating under multiple names are difficult to identify as sources.

IFT recommendations to the FDA included the following:

• Clearly identify the types of data that industry needs to provide during an outbreak investigations.
• Require each member of the food supply chain to develop, document and implement a product tracing plan.
• Pursue the adoption of a technology platform to allow the FDA to efficiently aggregate and analyse data reported in response to regulatory requests.
• Coordinate traceback investigations and develop response protocols between and among state and local health and regulatory agencies.
• Offer extensive outreach and education around future regulations and expectations.

It is anticipated that regulators will be able to resolve foodborne illness outbreaks earlier and the food industry to respond to them quicker if these recommendations are implemented. As a result, the public health impact of an outbreak will be greatly reduced as it has been shown that improved product tracing has the potential to reduce the public health impact in the US by up to 55% of total illnesses and reduce the economic impact by up to $14 million per outbreak.

The results of the pilots suggest that if a food company improves its ability to trace products, the company can expect to also achieve improved business processes, increase supply chain confidence and possibly expand their markets.

Many companies in the food industry consider product tracing a subset of supply chain operations, and product tracing may not be a dominant consideration when making investment decisions. However, the threat of not having product tracing capabilities in the event of a foodborne illness outbreak represents significant risks to a firm.

Technology enables better storage and tracking

Recent advancements in technology have made real-time recording of temperature and time possible - meaning that a case of tomatoes that sat in the sun after being picked would be the first off a semi, not the last. This can help limit food waste as supermarkets and distributors better understand the shelf life of produce.

These technologies are now so inexpensive that they can realistically be used by smaller scale food processors and farmers who need to be integrated into the distribution chain.

Enter RFID

The recent large-scale recalls of peanut butter and more than 100 related food items re-emphasises the need for an RFID-based track-and-trace system for the food industry.

Research firm IDTechEx says that the RFID market for food safety and animal tagging will grow from just over $1.1 billion in 2011 to more than $4 billion by 2021.

Clearly, food safety appears to be a sweet spot for the technology. Just as RFID provides increased inventory visibility for retailers, the technology can track food items in similar fashion, making food recalls easier to track and therefore limiting related illness. Big opportunities exist in the food supply chain from farm to fork, including monitoring temperature and humidity as food makes it way to retail outlets.

More than one-third of produce spoils before it reaches the shop shelf, representing an economic loss of an estimated $35 billion. RFID could put a big dent in that number.

The hope is that RFID and in-transit temperature monitoring can put a major dent in the $35 billion in annual waste by allowing food shippers to automatically monitor data and make proactive changes as simple as changing the routing destination of various pallets. The end result is that produce growers, distributors and retailers can avoid losses by utilising actionable data.

The insurance industry has typically shied away from the cold chain because of the lack of data, but with the new real-time data visibility that is achievable this need no longer be the case.

RFID in Canada

In Canada last year, CentrePort Canada and Invent IOT Technology unveiled an export tracking system to ensure the quality, integrity, origin and safety of agricultural products being shipped from central Canada to growing consumer markets in inland and western China.

The cargo security and tracking system utilised RFID technology that has been implemented by CentrePort Canada as part of a broader initiative to increase exports to China.

“This project is a breakthrough on several fronts,” said Diane Gray, president and CEO of CentrePort Canada. “It establishes a new supply platform for exporting goods to China, which means more sales and market opportunities for Manitoba and Canadian producers. And it provides an efficient, cost-effective RFID-tracking system to assure Chinese consumers that our products are high quality, authentic and safe.”

“The strategic collaboration between CentrePort Canada and Invent IOT Technology facilitates the development of Sino-Canadian trade, logistics and technology, ensuring the integrity of cargo in transit. And this collaborative relationship enables realisation of tracking, tracing, verification and management of the supply chain of Canadian meat products from birth to slaughtering, distribution and sales, ensuring Chinese consumers can rest assured that Manitoba and Canadian meat products are safe, authentic and healthy,” added Jack Sheng, president of Invent.

Invent IOT Technology developed the tracking technology, a passive RFID tag that is placed in the container as it is locked to ensure the integrity of the cargo along the supply chain. The RFID tag, which contains critical information about the cargo, is read at origin with the captured information sent to a back-office system. The RFID tag is read again at destination and the information retrieved must match the originating information. The RFID system can be accessed through a portal on CentrePort’s website.

“This new RFID system will only help enhance Manitoba and Canada’s reputation for exporting safe, high-quality food products by providing the security and assurances that China is seeking,” Gray said, noting that product tampering, cleanliness, counterfeiting and the misuse of chemicals are some of the issues China continues to face.

As part of the RFID project, CentrePort signed an MOU with Quingdao Port in China, which is installing overhead RFID readers to track the Canadian cargo as it enters the country. Gray said now that the supply platform and RFID-tracking system have been established, CentrePort will be working with Manitoba and Canadian agricultural producers to identify food products that can be exported to China.

RFID in Europe

Similarly, the European Commission-sponsored Farm to Fork initiative seeks to offer small to medium food producers in Europe the ability to benefit by deploying RFID. By linking RFID and sensor network technologies with a Europe-wide database that contains the exact history of any food product, SMEs will be given the opportunity to optimise their own business process and maximise return.

In addition, a pan-union resource will be created that will allow producers to demonstrate unequivocally the quality and freshness of their product, which will have the effect both of increasing consumer confidence and increasing producer margins.

With RFID technology embedded into their value chain, SMEs can benefit from improved worker productivity and efficiency, a reduction in labour costs, fast quality problems detection by monitoring environmental variables, more efficient control of the supply chain due to increased information accuracy and a reduction of human errors from manual scanning operations.

Farm to Fork has completed several pilots in the meat, dairy, wine and fish categories.

It’s clear that tracking and monitoring the condition of products from the producer to the consumer is becoming increasingly critical and that modern technologies can accurately gather the necessary information and disseminate in real time to ensure consumer safety as well as maximise product quality.