RFID’s Role in Tracking Tainted Products

The Transformation Enablers website has an article about contaminated produce,with particular reference to the recent tragedy of many Chinese babies getting sickened and some dying after consuming tainted milk products and how RFID can play a major role in quickly tracking and tracing such incidences before they begin to affect large numbers of people.

It goes on to elaborate – “Combining an RFID chip and antenna into a tag affixed to cases, boxes or individual products would allow automatic readers to pick up the signal from the tag to track and trace goods through the supply chain. Unique identification numbers programmed on the tags tie into databases and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms that list ingredients, production dates, manufacturing/production facility locations, delivery dates and destinations, and temperatures that the products were kept at along the way. Many already rely on this technology to track and trace goods through their supply chains, from the farm right through to a food processing facility.

Many food and beverage companies experienced at least one product recall last year and more than 50% resulted in losses of at least $10 million, according to a recent study by AMR Research. The study, Traceability in the Food and Beverage Supply Chain, reveals that on average it takes 14 days to determine the need for a recall and 34 days to take action. Companies typically collect less than 40 percent of affected products — most products have been consumed by the time this all takes place.

RFID deployments have picked up since government agencies, ranchers and farmers began experimenting with the technology in 2003, says Ashley Stephenson, chairman of Reva Systems. Reva works with several food growers, packagers and processed food manufacturers that use RFID technology in their supply chains.

Reva, for example, works with a European vegetable farmer that embeds UHF RFID tags on crates used to transport its crops. Handheld scanners equipped with GPS technology read the tags. The information feeding the grower’s ERP system not only identifies the location of the lettuce and carrots in real time, as bundles travel through to processing plants, but provides data on the time, date, and even the field in which the crop had been picked. The tags also monitor temperatures of the produce on refrigeration trucks bound for retail stores.

One product recall and the CIO could potentially see an “enormous” return on investment (ROI), Stephenson says. Contaminated product found in a dry goods mill, for example, would require the company to dump an entire crop, losing tens of million of dollars in discarded products. But the liability from consumers becoming ill or dying could have even harsher, longer-lasting effects.

Benefits include:

• Meeting government regulations
• Protecting consumers and brand names
• Preventing disposal of non-contaminated foods, and
• Finding the source of contamination quickly”

Even though regulations vary across countries and regions regarding the  handling of tainted food, there is an underlying universal concern about protecting human lives from the ill-effects of consuming such contaminated products, since such instances evoke a huge public outcry, negative backlash and bad PR for the companies concerned. RFID helps enterprises in managing and optimizing their cold chain with the help of temperature sensors and through other ways by which end-to-end tracking and tracing of products is made possible and timely alerts that the system triggers help prevent or minimize the dangers caused from such incidents.

Team Ennovasys wishes everyone a happy new year. Goodbye 2008 and hello 2009!