SAVING THE FRESH PRODUCE-NEW TECHNOLOGICAL INTERVENTION

Food waste is a "magic mantra" used in many developing countries to advocate use of modern technologies to reduce the wastage and extend the food supply chain. It is true that many crude practices, mostly manual in nature, which are in vogue in developing countries in Asia, Africa and South America in the fields as well as the post harvest handling practices lend them selves to some wastage which can be targeted under any program for reducing wastes. There are a multitude of technologies available to agricultural industry which can not only reduce waste but also safeguard the quality of the commodities from the farm to the consumer table. Of course there severe constraints at economic, technology adoption and logistical levels to transplant these technologies. Supply chain is vulnerable to many aberrations that can cause non-uniform quality among shipments from the farms and traceability is the new mantra being promoted in developed countries where field practices, packing shed operations, transport infrastructure, storage depots and retailer's facilities are largely automated. It is here that the new RFID tagging technology will be useful for better management of perishable produce coming from different sources and exposed to varying environmentsl conditions. Here is a take on this new development with exciting possibilities for organized industry.  

"One of the major problems is that much of our food travels long distances and through many hands as it journeys from farm to plate.  And as it travels, the temperature often changes dramatically.  Vegetables sit in the extremely hot sun after being picked, for example, and even the temperature within a refrigerated semi varies widely. While eating more local food is one answer to the problem (the food then travels far less), better tracking of food as it is stored and transported would also allow for more produce to reach our mouths less expensively. Today Intelleflex, a company based in Santa Clara, California, announced they have made this technology possible.  The system uses RFID tags and a cellular reader that includes a global positioning device (GPS), to help identify a case of tomatoes sitting at the airport, for example.  But beyond that, the tags also now record temperature and time data and immediately sends all the information to a cloud-based network. This system has several benefits over what currently exists in the food industry.  It allows companies to more easily manage produce and to better gauge the shelf-life of food.  Tomatoes sitting in the sun on the runway for hours then should be sold before those that sat inside the cool airport before being loaded onto the plane. But perhaps most importantly the company says using the reusable tags is cheap.  At $1 a use or less, ensuring a $500 pallet of fruit arrives safely to consumers is cost effective even for small producers.  The system also does not require expensive software to run it, and makes the data available to producers via the cloud".

In western countries the quality and safety of fresh produce are extremely critical because of the food habits that encourage consumption of many fresh fruits and vegetables which do not undergo pasteurization or any other disinfection process. Most food poisoning episodes revolve around these produce materials which carry the infection from the field to the market or are vulnerable to cross contamination during transportation and storage. RFID tags will definitely facilitate tracing of consignments which are exposed to severe storage or freighting conditions and help them to be brought to the market faster than others. Probably the whole world will have to move towards such a regime in future to prevent unwanted food pathogen contamination with potential to cause damage o the health of the consumer.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com