I have to admit that I buy organic milk, not just because I think
it’s healthier for my family, but because I can stock up on it without
the risk that it’ll go bad before we use it. Why does organic milk have
such a longer shelf-life than regular milk? Maybe they’ve figured out
something that the others haven’t. Maybe it’s Intelleflex.
Recently, the company developed what they call the Cool Chain Quick
Scan. It helps farmers and shippers identify spots in their
temperature-controlled supply chain - or cold chain - to improve
freshness. This may sound familiar to you because during our 100 Uses of RFID program, we blogged about RFID enabling temperature tracking
in real-time for sensitive, pharmaceutical shipments. Now we learn
about it being used to track produce temperatures, which makes a ton of
sense.
The time for fresh produce to be harvested, cooled, processed and
shipped can vary by hours and is influenced by several external factors
beyond the farm. Air temperatures of refrigerated vehicles add to the
complexity because they vary significantly, potentially causing the food
to go bad before it reaches the store. That could explain the condition
of the avocados I see in my supermarket.
The Cool Chain Quick Scan replaces guesswork, visual inspections and
First In/First Out inventory methods, with a snapshot of the cold chain.
It identifies, measures and documents the impact of the temperatures on
the produce. The monitoring is continuous - from the field, to the pack
house, through distribution, and finally the retail store. It sounds
tedious, but with RFID, it’s easy and cost-effective.
RFID tags that use light, temperature and humidity sensors, are
placed on the produce and processed as usual. For example, tags could be
placed with produce in the field during harvest, or in pallets being
transported from the pack house to distribution centers. Readers and
condition monitoring tags use battery-assisted, passive RFID to read
through pallets and containers with precision. The tags are removed at
the pack house and mailed back to Intelleflex for analysis that is
included in a detailed report, including:
- Temperature variation that the product is experiencing
- Amount of shelf life lost due to temperature issues
- Impact on customer satisfaction
- Recommendations to improve temperature management
This level of reporting can help farmers, distributors and retailers develop cold chain best practices.
By transforming climate monitoring from trailer-, container- and
warehouse-tracking devices to individual pallet tags, RFID can give
fresh produce suppliers detailed visibility into the lifecycle of the
produce. They can use this new found visibility and resulting best
practices to reduce shrink and improve profitability. Every fresh
produce supplier’s dream come through thanks to – of all things - RFID.
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