RFID fresh produce inventory pallet control: Inexpensive fresh produce solution uses low cost hardware with almost zero installation costs.

RFID inventory control
for fresh produce

Auto pallet RFID location tracking.
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Pallets put onto truck are auto added to order, and checked for accuracy.
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Pick up a pallet and its RFID instantly selected.
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Add pallet/bin to production line and its auto added to batch for traceability
DOWNLOAD THE RFID INVENTORY CONTROL BROCHURE

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RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
‍Zero waste
Stock rotation and expiry can be eliminated through automatic alerts, automatic FIFO enforcement, staff are guided to the exact location of fresh produce that must be processed or sold first.

Zero effort
Simply pick up a pallet/bin/bag and move it. RFID by farmsoft automatically tracks fresh produce inventory movement, updates its location, and flashes an alert on your tablet. Select an order, load pallets onto truck..… RFID by farmsoft automatically adds the pallets to the
order / invoice. Tip a bin into a batch or add pallet to a batch, its auto added to the batch. If you have your own trucks, you can RFID tag them; when you load an order farmsoft RFID will know which truck you have loaded.

Zero errors
Ever put the wrong pallet onto a truck, only to discover the error and must unload? Ever sent the wrong pallet across the country only to have to pay for it to be returned? Never again! RFID by farmsoft will alert you the second you pick up a pallet that doesn’t match current order. Make fresh produce load outs faster, and 100% accurate.

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DOWNLOAD THE RFID INVENTORY CONTROL BROCHURE

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The ability to track and trace complete information at item level in an efficient and trustworthy manner is becoming more and more important for companies, mainly due to the increased consumer concern over the safety and the quality of the purchased products. This is even more true for companies involved in the fresh vegetables supply chain, because the delicacy of fresh-cut products requires all stakeholders to organize their business processes as efficiently as possible to guarantee the end customers the highest quality products. The shift from quantity-oriented agriculture to new emphasis on products quality and people’s safety has placed new demands for the development and adoption of traceable supply chains. Traceability represents the ability to capture, collect, and store information related to all processes in the supply chain in a manner that provides guarantee to the consumer and other stakeholders on the origin, location and life history of a product. In particular, the adoption of an effective gapless traceability system, in the fresh vegetables supply chain, could enable companies to (i) detect warnings associated with product contaminations quickly and accurately, and (ii) optimize their main production processes in order to reduce cultivation costs and to ensure, at the same time, production optimization. Furthermore, an efficient traceability system represents a fundamental tool for people with special needs, such as patients affected by multiple intolerances [1], who struggle every day to perform elementary actions, such as the choice of food, because of the adverse reactions that particular components could cause if taken.

The development of an efficient traceability system requires the introduction in the supply chain of the technological innovations needed for product identification, process characterization, information capture, analysis, storage, and transmission, as well as the overall systems integration. These technologies include hardware (such as identification tags and labels) and software (computer programs and information systems) solutions. In particular, two of the most important auto-identification technologies able to optimize the critical processes in a supply chain are Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) [2] and Near Field Communication (NFC) [3]. They promise to replace the traditional optical auto-identification solutions in near future. Among the different types (i.e., passive, semipassive, and active) of RFID transponders, often called “tags”, the passive ones are used in most tracing systems, because they are characterized by a very low cost and small dimensions, since they do not require battery to operate. Passive RFID tags can also be classified according to the frequency band used (e.g., LF, HF, UHF, etc.) and the type of coupling (i.e., magnetic or electromagnetic) between tag antenna and reader antenna. The UHF tags could occasionally encounter problems, causing performance degradation, in the presence of materials, such as liquids and metals, which absorb Radio Frequency (RF) energy. However, some recent works [4–7] have demonstrated that the design of particular UHF tags is able to resolve such issues, thus demonstrating that they represent the best solution for item-level tracing systems in the whole supply chain. NFC is a short-range wireless (HF 13.56 MHz) technology derived from the RFID family. NFC entities can share power and data over a distance of a few centimeters (less than 5 cm). They inherit the basic features of RFID technology (i.e., working in reader/writer mode with passive tags) but they are also characterized by the possibility to share data across active (powered) devices [8]. The diffusion of these RF technologies has been significantly increased by the asserting of international standards such as EPCglobal [9–12] and Global Standard 1 (GS1). In particular, the EPCglobal standard provides a promising open architecture for tracking and tracing objects over the Internet. It defines a full protocol stack able to guarantee item-level data sharing related to products that move in the whole supply chain.

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How RFID technology can help increase confidence in food safety
Hand holding an RFID
KEYWORDS coronavirus and food safety / food safety trends / GS1 / RFID tags / RFID technology / tracking solutions
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Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, conscious consumerism was on the rise in a big way, forcing a shift in the way food supply chains function. Consumers want supply chain transparency, robust product information, the assurance of food safety and swift action when a recall occurs.

Now, in the age of pantry-loading, fast-food delivery and outdoor dining, satisfying a deeper need for information will be the key to securing consumer confidence and trust in our new pandemic-influenced reality. Core to delivering on what consumers want is enabling improved food traceability.

Recognizing the need to improve supply chain visibility and, ultimately, traceability, foodservice companies are beginning to explore the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to trace products throughout the supply chain and gain operational efficiencies. RFID-enabled efficiencies can cut labor costs by as much as 50% in the food supply chain, according to Avery Dennison. With equipment and label costs falling further each year as adoption ramps up (labels cost around five cents each now compared with 25 cents in 2008), many companies believe the investment can deliver significant returns.

RFID in the supply chain is nothing new—it has been used in retail for more than a decade, particularly in the apparel industry, to improve inventory visibility and gain fulfillment efficiencies. Levi’s, Nike, Macy’s and Target are among the most vocal supporters of RFID and have used it to help make their supply chains more agile. They’ve cited RFID as a foundational technology necessary to support e-commerce.

Learning from the successful implementations of RFID in retail, members of the Foodservice GS1 US Standards Initiative, a collaborative group of foodservice supply chain partners, are testing RFID to gain similar efficiencies and better serve their guests. RFID tags and readers add efficiency to the supply chain because they do not require the same line-of-sight scanning as barcodes. They can also enable the collection of information in real time and the ability to pinpoint where products are across the supply chain. Plus, in a world of prolonged social distancing due to COVID-19, there exists an opportunity to leverage RFID technology to create more contactless options to procure food.



RFID and Traceability
Looking toward the future of traceability, food companies are going to need to align on a common way to communicate product data to close any gaps in information in the supply chain. Global GS1 Standards play a key role in traceability as well as RFID implementations—having consistency in data exchange and product and location identification is critical to tracing products from farm to fork.

Good traceability starts at the source, where globally unique identifiers like Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) should be used on products in lieu of proprietary numbers that could create confusion across external systems. GTINs can be encoded into RFID tags along with additional product information, similar to how they are encoded into barcodes. In the food industry, case-level barcodes have traditionally served as the key point where information is connected to the flow of the product. Not only can RFID can help companies capture more data efficiently while products are in transit, it can streamline and validate the loading and receiving processes. Extended data such as batch number, lot number and expiration date are already becoming must-have information in the supply chain—RFID has the potential to take this further as tags can hold far more data than barcodes. This can enable full product provenance and enhance visibility through greater automation.



RFID and Inventory Visibility
When RFID tags are used, all supply chain partners that have RFID readers can enhance their real-time view of the product as it moves from stop to stop. Operators can then leverage RFID readers in their facilities to understand what they have available to sell. According to the Auburn University RFID Lab, RFID can raise inventory accuracy significantly, from 63% to 95%.

RFID is valuable for a foodservice operation simply because it reduces inventory uncertainty. For example, if an RFID reader is placed in a restaurant’s refrigerator, the operator will automatically know when there is a spike in a particular item being used, because the reader automates the transmission of inventory data. The operator sees in real time how much product is available to fulfill consumer demand. From a food safety perspective, RFID can play a role in helping operators intercept potentially harmful food before it reaches their guests because they have access to updated intelligence on what’s in stock and can take precautionary measures faster.

There are some inventory management differences between the way RFID is used in retail and how it may be used in foodservice. In foodservice, tags will be applied at the case level, instead of to individual items like in retail, simply due to the nature of how products are stored and transported. For example, there is no benefit to individually tagging a beef patty in the same way that there is in tagging a t-shirt in retail.



RFID and Our Contactless Future
RFID could be a key tool in our new normal, as it reduces the reliance on manual processes. For example, warehouse staff can more appropriately distance if RFID is used for cycle counts, and they can be freed up to perform other tasks. According to the Auburn University RFID Lab, cycle count times can be cut up to 96% when RFID is used. What usually takes three to four hours can be done in a few minutes without the need to manually scan line-of-sight barcodes.

As COVID-19 continues to affect the way we obtain food, the food industry has been forced to innovate faster and is becoming more digitally focused on the consumer-facing side as well. For many operators, this may be the only way to survive.

The efficiencies gained through using RFID can fuel evolving food distribution models. RFID can play a role in innovations from ensuring location-based accuracy for last-mile food delivery, to powering healthy vending machines while cafeterias in essential locations like hospitals remain closed.

Ultimately, while innovation was already a priority for many food companies prior to the pandemic, the complete shift in consumer behavior has become an undeniable catalyst for enhanced traceability, inventory management and contactless options. Look for RFID implementations to play a key role in the industry’s drive to enhance consumer confidence. 


Improved Inventory Accuracy and up to 60 % Reduced Food Waste!
Helping retailers revolutionise the management of fresh produce, Checkpoint Systems, a global leader in source-to-shopper solutions, has unveiled its new RFreshIDTM fresh food solution.

Using RFID technology, the solution allows stores to accurately monitor inventory levels and rotate stock efficiency as produce with near or exceeded expiry dates can be identified with ease.

External Link to the Checkpoint landing page
Checkpoint Systems: Retail Returns Management
18 Jan 2022 - Checkpoint Systems: Retail Returns Management

Despite increasing concerns surrounding food waste, more than 89 million tonnes of food are thrown away every year in Europe. The grocery retail sector contributes some 5 % to the total amount, often due to expired fresh produce, equating to more than 4.45 million tonnes.

Managing sell-by dates on perishable goods requires retailers to have a total view of their inventory at any given time. Here, inventory accuracy not only ensures brand owners can have a complete view of all merchandise and its location within the supply chain, but reduce lost sales and improve efficiency.

To date, retailers have relied on time-intensive, visual inspections to detect the sell-by dates on perishable products and manage replenishment needs, with less than half using an automated system to control inventory levels, but not expiry dates.

Here, retailers face an extremely difficult challenge. The management of sell-by dates is not only critical to the quality and sale of products in-store, but to retailers’ responsibility to protect consumers, ensuring that any out of date products are identified and removed promptly.

Checkpoint Systems: Focus on the Customer Experience
13 Dec 2021 - Checkpoint Systems: Focus on the Customer Experience

The RFreshID solution enables retailers to manage inventory and precisely plan when replenishments are required, as well as when stock needs to be marked down for sale. Checkpoint customers using the solution have already noted reduced food waste levels by as much as 60 %, while also minimising the time spent required to manually check merchandise by up to 78%. Improvements in inventory accuracy were also noted, achieving up to 99.99 % in the stock room and up to 99 % on the sales floor. By improving cycle count times, reducing waste and accurately managing expiry dates, retailers can enjoy an uplift in sales thanks to increased product availability.

From Delivery to Disposal
Thanks to the application of Checkpoint’s RFreshID at source, retailers are able to receive RFID tagged products, that can be quickly verified, aiding a high inventory accuracy. To achieve this, Checkpoint’s high-performance RFID labels are automatically applied during the production process. This not only improves the accuracy of shipments distributed from the point of manufacture but ensures accurate, timely deliveries in store.

Whether its on shop floor or in stock rooms, Checkpoint’s RFreshID scanning process enables store personnel to use an intuitive handheld device that quickly and accurately counts and locates specific items. It works in conjunction with RFreshID reporting software to deliver real-time actionable data that includes insights on replenishment, expiration, markdown, waste reports, products to restock and order, as well as items that are about to expire or have expired.

Completing the cycle from delivery to disposal, RFreshID waste process provides insights into the amount of fresh produce that has expired and automatically removes the product from inventory records.

Delivering a wide range of substantial benefits for retailers, Checkpoint’s RFreshID fresh food solution means products can be more efficiently managed and displayed in-store. By reducing waste and managing stock more efficiently, retailers can also enjoy an increase in sales.

Miguel Garcia Manso, Business Unit Director Germany of Checkpoint Systems, commented: “The shelf life of fresh produce presents a unique challenge for grocery retailers. By improving inventory management and replenishment, retailers can not only see a marked improvement in stock rotation and sales but crucially reduce current levels of avoidable and costly food waste. RFreshID delivers the highest level of accuracy and ensures retailers are putting forward the right price, at the right time on the right product.”
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Bridging the Gaps in Traceability Systems for Fresh Produce Supply Chains: Overview and Development of an Integrated IoT-Based System
by Aristotelis C. Tagarakis 1ORCID,Lefteris Benos 1,Dimitrios Kateris 1,*ORCID,Nikolaos Tsotsolas 2 andDionysis Bochtis 1ORCID
1
Centre of Research and Technology-Hellas (CERTH), Institute for Bio-Economy and Agri-Technology (IBO), 6th km Charilaou-Thermi Rd, 57001 Thessaloniki, Greece
2
Green Projects SA, R&D Department, Admitou 15, 15238 Athens, Greece
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Subhas Mukhopadhyay and Manuel Armada
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(16), 7596; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11167596
Received: 16 July 2021 / Revised: 11 August 2021 / Accepted: 17 August 2021 / Published: 18 August 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Agri-Technologies 2)
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Abstract
Traceability, namely the ability to access information about a product and its movement across all stages of the supply chain, has been emerged as a key criterion of a product’s quality and safety. Managing fresh products, such as fruits and vegetables, is a particularly complicated task, since they are perishable with short shelf lives and are vulnerable to environmental conditions. This makes traceability of fresh produce very significant. The present study provides a brief overview of the relative literature on fresh produce traceability systems. It was concluded that the commercially available traceability systems usually neither cover the entire length of the supply chain nor rely on open and transparent interoperability standards. Therefore, a user-friendly open access traceability system is proposed for the development of an integrated solution for traceability and agro-logistics of fresh products, focusing on interoperability and data sharing. Various Internet of Things technologies are incorporated and connected to the web, while an android-based platform enables the monitoring of the quality of fruits and vegetables throughout the whole agri-food supply chain, starting from the field level to the consumer and back to the field. The applicability of the system, named AgroTRACE, is further extended to waste management, which constitutes an important aspect of a circular economy.
Keywords: traceability; food safety; IoT; event capturing; integrated information system; information management; transaction support; data sharing; real-time communication; interoperability
1. Introduction
1.1. General Context of Traceability for Agri-Food Supply Chains
Maximizing food safety throughout the entire supply chain is of great importance and constitutes a major challenge towards the development of reliable agri-food supply chains. Focusing on fresh produce supply chains, they deal with perishable commodities, such as fruits and vegetables, which continue to respire and metabolize after harvest [1]. As a consequence, the management of fresh food tends to be more complicated and costly compared to any other supply chain. This is mainly because of the products’ short shelf lives and sensitivity to temperature and humidity as well as possible damage during harvesting, transportation, processing, packaging or handling and shipping [2,3]. In essence, the longer the time period pertaining to the different phases within the supply chain, the larger the probability of the food quality to get deteriorated. A number of stages take place until the fresh food is supplied to the consumers. According to Bosona and Gebresenbet [4], who reviewed the literature on food traceability, the initial stage includes in-field activities, ranging roughly from seeding or planting and harvesting to transportation and delivery to the food processing industry. There, various operations are carried out such as cleaning, chemical treating, packaging and delivery to distributors. Subsequently, perishable products need additional maintenance, which is vital for the purpose of delivering, to the customers, products of great quality. This implies the need for appropriately cooling the storage as well as modified atmosphere storage facilities and transportation means.
Furthermore, a wide range of routines must be followed at each phase of the food life cycle so as to contain foodborne pathogens. These pathogens refer to a broad spectrum of bacteria, viruses, parasites and chemical substances that can affect food quality. Remarkably, the number of incidence corresponding to foodborne pathogens is alarmingly increasing worldwide, thus, putting at risk the health of people and contributing to the global burden of mortality according to the World Health Organization (WHO) [5]. For instance, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control [6], the incidence of infections owing to Salmonella, Shigella and Listeria has remained unchanged in the U.S. In addition, a plethora of cases have been reported during the last twenty years, such as the Chinese milk and tainted pork scandals, horse meat scandal in Europe, the Australian rockmelon and U.S. Hami melon listeriosis outbreaks, to mention but a few [7,8,9,10,11].
For the sake of assuring food safety, the governments in cooperation with health organizations have strengthened management strategies targeting at traceability of fresh produce supply chains through issuing relevant regulations and laws. Indicatively, the General Food Law in the European Union [12] and the Food Safety Law of China [13] require the food producers to ensure food traceability with the aim of recalling products in a timely manner and providing useful information to consumers. Consequently, traceability has become a prerequisite challenge to be addressed by all food-related stakeholders towards an optimal quality management of the fresh produce supply chain. Traceability information can offer the possibility to enterprises for discount planning, stock rotation, sales tracking, inventory ordering and warning customers about the suspect products [14]. In turn, reliable traceability systems build customers’ trust on the traceable food products, leading them to be willing to pay more for such products [15].
In spite of the numerous studies that have been published in the relative literature concerning the traceability of agri-food supply chains [16,17,18,19,20], there was no common and clear definition of food traceability. By reviewing the relevant papers in this field, Islam and Cullen [14] recently proposed a concise definition of food traceability:
“Food traceability is an ability to access specific information about a food product that has been captured and integrated with the product’s recorded identification throughout the supply chain”
For the creation of the above definition, the main drivers (the motivating factors), beneficiaries (referring to who benefit from the food traceability systems), typologies (e.g., “forward” and “backward” traceability) and principles (describing how traceability can be efficiently implemented) were taken into account. The term “specific information” exists in the aforementioned definition to denote that complete traceability is never possible, owing to the large volume of information and the required cost. Moreover, the term “access” signifies the capability to view, get or exploit the recorded information and the “identification” to highlight the process of assigning to the product distinctive codes. Finally, the term “captured” is used to demonstrate product’s information collection, while the term “integrated” expresses the integration of linking, merging, sharing and transmission of the recorded data [14].
As far as the traceability of fresh produce supply chains is concerned, it involves internal and external entities. The “internal” entities refer to enterprises engaging in production, processing, cold chain logistics, sales enterprises, etc. In contrast, the “external” ones deal with consumers and regulatory agencies [21,22]. Additionally, the fresh produce supply chain contains long production chains, several production and sales points and extends to a large area. Hence, both supervision and tracing are exceptionally challenging in practice.
1.2. Incorporating Internet of Things to Optimize Agricultural Traceability Systems
A large amount of data have to be gathered across the supply chain for traceability purposes. Early traceability systems used to rely on records kept by workers on the field and then manually entered in paper or computer-based systems. As a result, faulty information recording could be made. Following the rapid technological advancements associated with agriculture 4.0 [23,24], especially with Internet of Things (IoTs) and machine learning [25,26,27,28], more efficient and trustworthy gathering procedures have been utilized. Various sensor technologies, incorporated to IoT systems, support technologies involved in each stage of the food supply chain, hence, providing a more effective way for the purpose of recording and exchanging useful information. These technologies include, for example, barcodes, Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID), Quick Response (QR) codes and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) [29,30].
Regarding a QR code, it is a label that can be read, by a scanning device, a mobile phone for instance, and is made of a white background along with black squares arranged inside it. Although QR codes are similar in practice with barcodes, they encompass more information, since they can store information both vertically and horizontally; in contrast, barcodes contain only horizontal information. Hence, QR codes have a considerably higher capability of providing information, making them very popular in food industry. Furthermore, tagging food items with RFID enables the user to identify and track inventory problems as well as provide details on the overall performance of agri-food supply chain by emitting radio waves and receiving back signals from the tag [31]. RFID technology also offers real-time location tracking, condition monitoring, warehouse automation and transaction monitoring services. Compared with barcodes, RFID outperforms due to its capability to transmit precise information of high capacity with higher speed. Nevertheless, the foremost drawback in this technology is its relatively high implementation cost [2,32]. As for WSNs, they refer to a variety of spatially distributed sensors with the intention of monitoring and recording the environmental conditions, including temperature, humidity, wind and pressure, by applying certain protocols and standards [33]. The low-power, small-sized, multipurpose and self-organized nodes are a scalable and cost-effective technology supporting WSN [34], rendering them essential tools towards automation of agricultural practices and enabling effective traceability.
Various communication approaches can be implemented in traceability systems, depending on the degree of technology and standardization. According to [14], there are three indicative examples of communication approaches; (a) the “One up-one down” approach, that stores information concerning suppliers and customers, (b) the “Pedigree” approach according to which the product’s history from all the previous process nodes is available, and (c) the “Centralized” approach, where a cloud-based centralized database exists that is managed by a third party. However, the centralized database is prone to get manipulated by enterprises [35]. In pursuance of increasing the reliability and security of information transmission between various stakeholders, blockchain has emerged, which can be simply defined as “a distributed ledger maintaining a continuously growing list of data records that are confirmed by all of the participating nodes” [36]. In practice, blockchain is a kind of decentralized tamper-proof database, which can be accessed by many parties, while any action must be consistent with agreed rules. Blockchain makes use of a cryptographic algorithm as a means of generating a chain comprising of data blocks in chronological order. A block is a record enclosing data along with information from the previous block’s hash, which results in a value representing its own unique hash [37]. The hash, in turn, corresponds to the digital “fingerprint” of a wide range of block’s data; one of the key principles of the blockchain architecture. If any tampering with the data takes place, this digital fingerprint alters leading to an invalid chain [29].
In summary, food supply chains have been evolved over the years aiming at offering improved services at a lower cost. Figure 1 depicts a simplified food supply chain consisting of its main stages/links. In IoT-based supply chain paradigms for traceability purposes the activities, carried out within each stage, are recorded in the corresponding block, as described above. Moreover, the information in relation to the transactions is verified by the food supply network business partners and, subsequently, added in the blockchain forming an immutable record [38]. Based on the tracing direction, the product can be either tracked top-down throughout the food supply chain (forward traceability) or traced bottom-up (backward traceability). Both forward and backward traceability are regarded to be important components of any food traceability system [4,39]. Finally, traceability systems should have to cope with a variety of concerns regarding food security, fraud and withdrawal as well as societal issues, compliance with regulations and consumers’ awareness [40].
Applsci 11 07596 g001 550Figure 1. An illustrative example of a fresh produce supply chain along with the information recorded in each stage within a block; products flow forward the food supply chain, while both forward and backward traceability can take place following the product in either top-down or bottom-up direction across the food supply chain, respectively.
1.3. Related Work
Taking into account the significance of the development of flexible and reliable agri-food traceability systems, several efforts have been presented in the scholarly literature in this direction. In brief, focusing on the recent literature for agri-food supply chains, indicative studies (without applying blockchain technology) include application of QR codes [41,42,43], RFID tags [44,45], and also combination of QR codes with RFID technology [46,47]. In [41], a traceability model was proposed for vegetables that utilizes QR codes as information carriers for identifying various aspects associated with cultivation, storage, processing and transportation, while web Service technology was used for exchanging information. Similarly, QR codes were applied in [42] and [43] for tracing a farm-to-fork supply chain regarding vegetables and melons, respectively. In [44], RFID tags on products of a fruit warehouse and personal digital assistant devices were implemented. This semiautomatic traceability platform resulted in shorter time required as regards data analysis and management. In the same vein, Hsu et al. [45] used an RFID-based traceability system pertaining to live fish supply chain leading to valuable results for practical reference. RFID tags were also proposed in [46] in conjunction with QR codes for the design of a traceability system for wheat flour mills. QR codes were implemented to identify small packages of wheat flour, while RFID tags were used to record logistics information. This proposed system proved to be more efficient in terms of information queries than a system purely based on paper records. Both QR and RFID technologies were also implemented in [47] for tracing a prepackaged food supply chain together with XML to facilitate the sharing of information among different stakeholders.
With the ledger technologies, such as blockchain, being more and more streamlined, several studies proposing cloud traceability systems started to gain ground [48,49]. Cloud technologies can contribute to better real-time identifying, locating and tracking the status of products. This can facilitate the retrieval of useful data, analytics, storage and connectivity throughout the supply chain, which are significant aspects when it comes to traceability of perishable products so as to assure the required safety standards [50]. In short, Mao et al. [48] proposed a Food Trading System with COnsortium blockchaiN (FTSCON) so as to increase security and trust in transactions. Their results demonstrated that the proposed system can enhance merchants’ profit. Finally, Leng et al. [49] developed a blockchain focusing on supply chain system of agricultural products relying on a double chain architecture; a “user information chain” and a “transaction chain”. This architecture proved to have the potential to considerably improve the trustworthiness of the platform and also the overall system’s efficiency. More information about the implementation of blockchain for facilitating different functions of agricultural traceability systems can be found in recent review studies such as [29,51,52,53].
In spite of the increasing interest in traceability systems regarding fresh produce, the available integrated IoT-based systems are scarce and at a relatively early stage of development. These efforts, that are available on the market, include solutions covering the supply chain from field to retailer, namely GR-LIVE (Food Logistics; Waukesha, WI, USA) [54] and FoodLogiQ’s Track + Trace (LogiQ; Charlotte, NC, USA) [55], from the packaging plant to retailer, namely iApp (ORBCOMM; Rochelle Park, NJ, USA) [56] and AutoSense (Emerson; St. Louis, MO, USA) [57], and from the packaging plant to consumer, namely HarvestMark (iFooDS and HarvestMark; Seattle, WA, USA) [58] and iris (Frequentz; San Ramon, CA, USA) [59]. A general remark for these systems is that they deal with limited parts of the supply chain and do not cover the entire range of it, i.e. from field to consumer, while they do not provide an open architecture.
1.4. Aim of the Present Study
From the literature analysis presented above, several traceability systems have been developed and are commercially available. However, significant gaps in the literature were identified; the short range of application of these systems, which cover only a few stages of the supply chain, the extremely limited interoperability among the different systems, and the closed structure not allowing for open source use. In this study, a state-of-the-art IoT-based system is proposed, named “AgroTRACE”, aiming at providing an integrated solution for traceability and agro-logistics of fresh fruits and vegetables from farm to fork and back to the farm by also tracing waste to be used as input for crop production. Furthermore, AgroTRACE is an open source system, composed of a web platform available for all the participants of the food supply chain. In addition, a user-friendly Android application has been developed for consumers encompassing all the basic functions in relation to the on-the-fly scanning and retrieving of all the important aspects of the perishable products. The system, which is implemented within the AgroTRACE project [60], supports both the internal and external traceability throughout the supply chain.
Table 1 presents a comparison of the proposed system with the aforementioned traceability systems currently available on the market. It can be inferred that the proposed modular structure is based on open and transparent interoperability standards that allow for faster monitoring of the system’s operation in product’s tracking processes. As a consequence, the quality of the fresh produce is guaranteed via a reliable traceability system, which starts from the farm level up to the consumer and back to the farm, in contrast with the limited range of the supply chain of the other available systems. Moreover, AgroTRACE incorporates all of best data transfer technologies used by other systems, namely RFID, LoRaWAN network for inter-device communication, and beacons technology along with the corresponding Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication protocols. The innovation of AgroTRACE is further reinforced by covering also the part of waste management and recycling, incorporating circular economy practices to the traceability system. To this end, the proposed solution fully supports traceability of biowaste by providing documentation on supply chain partners’ Corporate Social Responsibility and supporting industrial symbiosis. The latter refers to the process where the “waste” of a production process is an input of another unit. To sum up, the proposed holistic approach is the first that uses an open architecture, deals with waste management, covers the entire length of the supply chain, combines a variety of IoT technologies for real time acquisition of information and decision making and considerably facilitates interoperability.
Table 1. Comparison of the available IoT-based traceability systems on the market with the proposed solution (AgroTRACE).
Table
2. Conceptual Framework of AgroTRACE
The proposed system traces the supply chain via a process consisting of four stages, namely recognition, recording, evaluation and sharing, which are described in the following subsections.
2.1. Recognition
Recognition refers to the capability offered by AgroTRACE to distinguish the fresh products, the infrastructure and sites, from the producer to the consumer, by taking into account the GS1 standards. In particular, the following standardization is incorporated:
Global Location Number (GLN): Distinction among the locations of farms, packaging units, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, etc.
Global Trade Item Number (GTIN): Identifying trade items by providing a single number for each product.
Electronic Product Code (EPC): Providing serial numbers for the commercial item.
Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC): Providing containers’ serial codes for the pallets.
Global Returnable Asset Identifier (GRAI): Distinction of the returned produce.
2.2. Recording
The carriers pertaining to GS1 system data are utilized for the sake of data management in order to address the needs of the supply chain process for a variety of products. Specifically:
At retail stores, the EAN/UPC barcodes are implemented for scanning.
In the interest of identifying the product’s units on the pallets and packaging for monitoring products’ movement and acquiring information about them across the supply chain, the GS1-128 barcodes are employed.
GS1 DataBar barcodes are also used, which can provide the same or more information and in less space comparing to UPC barcodes.
UPC barcodes are used for small-sized products and for products that are difficult to track.
RFID tags are used which are connected with the products’ EPC.
The data, which are coded in data carriers of the GS1 system, are able to identify the products and enable trading partners to share a great amount of data including the number of batch, the date of production and packaging information, to mention but a few.
2.3. Evaluation
Evaluation refers to the assessment of the gathered information in respect to the goals that can be expressed as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which are set by the partners of the supply chain throughout the supply chain. Moreover, the system provides the capability of using KPIs from the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) [61]. Consequently, anonymous evaluation can be accomplished regarding the chain’s partners’ performance.
2.4. Sharing
One of the key challenges of the existing traceability systems is their interoperability and data sharing, as they both allow for smooth information exchange when it comes to trade transactions. Towards this direction, the GS1 interface standards listed below are used:
Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN): It links the trading partners with GS1 Global Registry through GS1 certified data. This provides the capability of instant electronic exchange of updated, standardized and verified information. Furthermore, the useful information can be shared pertaining to GTINs; unique identity for the owner’s product, description of the product, and classification of the product in terms of Global Product Classification (GPC).
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): It enables the exchange of important documents between enterprises via a standard format. It can also allow for sharing information including GTIN, GLN and SSCC, which were briefly described above, as well as invoicing, delivery information, order details and payment tracking.
Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS): It is the standard for the information exchanging dealing with critical events about the monitoring of the route of a product taking place along the agri-food supply chain. It also shares information such as the date, time and location in the action stream of the event of interest, GTIN and GLN.
The framework of the AgroTRACE system described above, along with the implemented standardization throughout the agri-food supply chain, is illustrated in Figure 2. The implementation of GS1 standards is an essential aspect of AgroTRACE system for the purpose of being fully modular and able to receive and send information by utilizing IoT technologies and event capturing applications (e.g., QR, RFID and Barcode readers). As can be inferred from this graph, the ability for traceability is extended beyond the farm-to-shelf route covering also the recycling and industrial symbiosis; the waste of a production process becomes an input for another unit. This realization takes place in the framework of the circular economy context. In this context, the proposed integrated system enables traceability of organic waste by providing the required documentation about the Corporate Social Responsibility to the supply chain partners.
Applsci 11 07596 g002 550Figure 2. Schematic illustration of the conceptual framework of the AgroTRACE system.
An important strength of AgroTRACE is both the big data collection and management in real conditions covering various stages of the supply chain from farm-to-shelf-to-farm. As far as big data management is concerned, the open source Apache Hadoop software [62] is used that enables distributed processing of big data in computer clusters by utilizing relatively simple programming models. This software has been created as a means of scaling up from single servers to a plethora of machines, each one providing localized computation and storage. Rather than depending on hardware for offering high availability, the library has been designed to find out and address failures on the application layer. The Apache Hadoop project includes the following modules [62]: (a) “Hadoop Common” providing the common utilities which support the other modules, (b) “Hadoop Distributed File System”, which is a distributed file system offering accessibility to application data, (c) “Hadoop YARN”, offering a system for cluster resource management and job scheduling, (d) “Hadoop MapReduce” enabling parallel processing when it comes to large data sets, and (e) “Hadoop Ozone”, which is a scalable and distributed object store for Hadoop. Moreover, applications utilizing frameworks, such as Apache Spark (an engine enabling large-scale data processing), Apache Hive (a software facilitating the management of large datasets being in distributed storage by using Structured Query Language (SQL)) and Apache YARN (briefly analyzed above), can operate natively without any alterations. For the implementation of the Apache Hadoop software, the open source software Apache Storm [63] and Apache Mesos [64] are also used because they enable reliable real-time processing of streams of data and they also allow elastic distributed systems to be easily developed and run efficiently.
3. The AgroTRACE Infrastructure
Throughout the design and implementation of the AgroTRACE system, full compliance with GS1 standards and best practices related to them are ensured. The range of the tracing extends from the field to the consumer and back to the field by also monitoring waste treatment. Moreover, the modular structure offers flexibility and adaptability, while the use of open standards favors the interoperability and data sharing. Interoperability is one of the greatest challenges in the development of an integrated IoT system in agriculture [65]. The proposed system includes integrated information management based on a System-of-Systems (SoS) approach. This approach supports interconnection and interoperability of individual sensing systems in a single system that provides access to the user for the implementation of different traceability scenarios. It also allows existing information systems to continue to operate, by receiving data from partner systems.
As can be depicted in Figure 3, AgroTRACE consists of three main elements: (i) the event capturing and IoT application platform, (ii) the transaction support and information management system and (iii) the data mapping system.
Applsci 11 07596 g003 550Figure 3. Simplified graph of the infrastructure of AgroTRACE system showing its main three elements and the involved IoTs.
3.1. Event Capturing and IoT Application Platform
This platform is the location, where the gathering, storage and processing of the data originated from different event capturing applications, IoT applications and networks as well as third-party applications take place. More specifically, in the framework of AgroTRACE, two indicative event capturing and five IoT applications have been developed, which are linked together for supporting particular use cases. The context of these applications is briefly described below.
3.1.1. Event Capturing Applications
The event capturing applications deal with visual reading by utilizing smart devices for:
Monitoring the route from the field to the packaging plant (see also Figure 2). During harvest, the numbers of the perishable products, i.e., vegetables and fruits, are scanned via the GRAI application and imprinted in barcodes or QR codes on pallets. The same batch numbers are scanned during entering the packaging plant and, in particular, at the sorting line and at the temporary storage point. These numbers are linked to the corresponding field’s and packing GLN numbers as well as through the sorting line systems by using the GTIN numbers of the available products and SSCC numbers of the pallets. Concerning the former, the extended form, namely GTIN-128, is used which contains information of different batches.
Management purposes in the retail point. The customer is able to scan the number of the fresh product by using the GTIN-128 application. The numbers are imprinted in QR codes or data bars, thus allowing for access to its history. Thus, the product can be tracked after the shelf of store, until the refrigerator of the consumer.
3.1.2. IoT Applications
In fresh produce traceability systems, there is the need for continuous monitoring of the location and conditions of a product throughout the supply chain from farm to store. Starting from the in-field crop production management practices, the need for informed decisions on fertilization, plant protection, harvesting, transport, storage and standardization has led to the development and deployment of IOT in agriculture. Such wireless sensing systems allow for measuring crop, soil, weather and environmental parameters as can be seen in Table 2. In short, the sensing systems of AgroTRACE can be classified into systems implemented at farms and during transportation and storage. In practice, weather stations and wireless sensing systems are used at farm level for measuring weather parameters, including ambient temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind velocity and precipitation. Furthermore, important soil parameters are measured, such as soil temperature, moisture content and electrical conductivity. Finally, greenhouse gas emissions are measured at points of interest, while tracking tractors’ activity is accomplished through Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Checking the conditions of transport and storage of vulnerable products and tracking their location is also of major importance. For this purpose, measurements of temperature, humidity and CO2 concentration are continuously taking place.
Table 2. The main parameters measured by IoT systems across the agri-food supply chain.
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RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
Professional RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
Rapid and easy to implement RFID
1. Pallet position reader
2. Pallet tag reader
3. 10" tablet running farmsoft

Hardware costs as low as $450 per forklift. No expensive infrastructure necessary.
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‍Is RFID finally ready to take on the food industry?

Radio frequency identification (RFID) has become established as a dominant force in the apparel industry, with the technology finally approaching mass adoption after years of threatening to.

The technology involves tags or “labels” that emit a small radio frequency, allowing radio stock counts that are both highly accurate and incredibly fast compared to traditional methods. The result of this is a very up to date, or even real-time, view of stock. The main use cases responsible for the technology’s success include the increased process efficiency, superior inventory management and the enablement of seamless omnichannel services.

That’s the story of RFID in apparel, but what about other retail industries? After years of technical roadblocks that have kept the technology out of other markets, the technology has matured to a point where new industries are RFID-viable for the first time ever. The beauty and cosmetics industry is beginning to take notice of RFID, and perhaps now food retailers should do the same.

Why? Because modern RFID is so well positioned to tackle the food industry’s unique challenges, like optimising inventory, minimising food waste and increasing the traceability of the supply chain.

Whilst this sounds great, the limitations of the technology that we mentioned earlier have historically meant RFID just wasn’t viable for the food market. As well as liquid and metallic products traditionally interfering with the RFID signals, the food industry’s drastically lower average article price compared to the apparel industry were significant roadblocks. But this changing…

Mature RFID technology is ready to take on the food industry
RFID is reaching a level of maturity that means the previous barriers to entry for the food industry are starting to disappear:

The price of individual RFID tags has fallen significantly, making it viable for more and more food products.
RFID tags have become smaller – so it’s now possible to label even the smallest items.
More advanced tags now exist that work on metal and liquid products
Durable tags that survive high and low temperatures and even microwaves are now available, meaning all kinds of food packaging can be tagged with RFID.
Because of these changes we are already seeing the first steps of RFID breaking into the food industry, with RFID-giant Avery Dennison beginning to operate in the market and last year the first-ever blockchain beef shipment taking place using RFID tagging, providing a potentially industry-changing level of traceability and assurance only possible through RFID.

Superior inventory management for efficient operations.
The first major use case for RFID in the food industry is one already tried and tested in apparel – superior inventory management. Replacing manual stock-keeping methods with fast and highly accurate RFID processes gives retailers a reliable and up-to-date view of their entire stock. Whilst having a clear view of store inventory is highly beneficial for any retail business but for the food industry, where items have to be managed and monitored much more intensely, an RFID system could cut shelf life labour costs by up to 50%. Another major impact of the 99% stock accuracy RFID provides is the reduction in inventory sizes due to not needing extra ‘safety stock’, this could have a major economic effect for food retailers and would also stop inventory shrinkage from expiry dates. Leading us to our next major use for RFID in food retail:

Reducing Food Waste
Food waste is a massive problem. Every year in the UK alone 18 million tonnes of food end up in landfill, Around 1/3 from producers/ supply chain, 1/3 from retail and 1/3 from households. Not only is this an environmental and ethical issue, but for the food industry itself, this sees huge amounts of capital literally wasting away.

Food Waste - Where does it come from?
When it comes to retail, fresh produce and waste due to shelf-life is a unique issue to the food industry, but one RFID (and an effective RFID platform) is well suited to manage. Expiry dates result in a huge amount of food waste in the commercial sector and are also very labour intensive to manage on the shop floor.

So how might RFID solve this problem? The benefits that the accurate and item-level view of stock RFID provides has been well documented in the apparel sector, but with the food industry, this real-time view of stock will be even more valuable. An Internet of Things platform (giving individual physical objects a unique digital identity) designed specifically for use with food products would not only be able to monitor and maintain stock levels on shelves but could monitor the expiry date of individual products, alerting staff when items are nearing expiry or need to be marked down.

Detego Food RFID application
A fully Visible and Transparent Supply Chain – for consumer satisfaction and better handling of product recalls.
The final major use case of RFID for the food industry is the traceability of products through the supply chain. Whilst other retail industries get value out of this in terms of warehouse efficiency and smooth operations between distribution centres and stores, the food industry is an industry where traceability of products is a major concern, for consumers just as much as retailers. People are increasingly concerned with where their food comes from, and suppliers and retailers could look to take advantage of RFID traceability and even utilise new blockchain methods alongside this to offer their customers assurances and gain the trust of consumers. We are already in the very early stages of this having already seen the first blockchain beef shipment take place, giving consumers 100% traceability and visibility of where their produce comes from.

On the other end of the food traceability issue is food recalls. Product recalls are an unfortunately common problem in the food industry, costing the industry an estimated $55.5 billion a year. A recent example of this being the major recall of humous products across the UK due to salmonella. These have a huge impact on the industry, not only economically but also on brand reputation. RFID’s ability to accurately trace individual items across an entire supply chain could prove invaluable in such an event. Having complete accuracy would allow food suppliers to pinpoint exactly where the issue occurred and easily track where all other products from the compromised location were sent, allowing for fast and efficient recalls. This would also potentially reduce food wastage due to over-recall and increase consumer trust in the retailer.

Food Recalls impact
Conclusion
So, the food industry has several challenges that RFID has been proven to solve and the technology has gotten to a point where it is viable among the much more diverse and complicated range of products. The only thing that may hold it back is the cost. Whilst the price of tags has dropped significantly, the price point for food products is far lower than in apparel. This may prove a barrier for tagging some food items, at least initially. Fresh products like meat and fish (and potentially some fruit and veg) however have both a high enough price point and a limited shelf life meaning managing them with RFID could prove hugely beneficial. The food industry is a new frontier for RFID, and time will tell just how well it does in the market. But make no mistake, in the coming years we will see it attempted, and the success of the technology in the industry will be decided, one way or another.

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‍The State of Hawaii Department of Agriculture and the Hawaii Farm Bureau have partnered to deploy a three-year pilot RFID initiative. The Hawaii Produce Traceability initiative uses UPM Raflatac RFID inlays to track and trace fresh produce throughout the State’s food supply chain. The innovative initiative, the first of its kind in the US, is designed to promote food safety by providing product visibility down to the farm or even field level. The RFID system provides detailed, real-time information which can be used to optimize the supply chain, enable recalls in less than an hour and improve inventory control.

In the first phase Lowry Computer Products developed an RFID solution leveraging hardware from Motorola and Symbol Technologies, and Globe Ranger system software. The system pairs waterproof labels with UPM Raflatac ShortDipole UHF inlays with the Lowry Computer Products’ Fresh Harvest Solution to provide real-time supply chain data of when boxed produce is planted and harvested, what pesticides are used and when and where RFID-tagged boxes are scanned. The data is automatically uploaded into a database, where it can be used by program participants. It is also available for public review on the initiative web portal, www.hawaiifoodsafetycenter.org.

Growers were offered the opportunity to participate by either slap-and-ship tagging or usage of a hand-held RFID system. Boxed produce is read at the distribution center upon entry and exit of both the physical facility and cold storage. Tags are read again at the retailers' point of entry, removal from cold storage and at end of life. Both the distribution center and retailer use a fixed portal RFID reader.

Participants can use gathered data to optimize harvest productivity, strengthen food processing controls, increase cold chain visibility, reduce produce dwell time on shipping and receiving docks, accelerate transportation times between trading partners and improve inventory turns.

This enables them to optimize margins in the competitive food industry. In the event of a food recall growers can quickly identify if they are impacted, thus enhancing their brand and protecting revenues. Affected growers can localize the impact of relevant recalls to the field level, minimizing losses.

State officials are considering enhancements to the next two phases of the project, such as deploying RFID-enabled cellphones to enable more farms to participate, and implementing produce temperature tracking to reduce the threat of food spoilage. The initiative could be expanded to cover 5,000 State farms at full implementation.

“The Hawaii Produce Traceability initiative is an integral part of the State Food Safety Certification system,” says Dr. John Ryan, Administrator, Quality Assurance Division, State of Hawaii Department of Agriculture.

“This project provides the backbone for future and more preventive closed-loop sensor technologies which are capable of measuring and reporting biocontaminants and temperature variations via the RFID system as produce moves through the supply chain. The RFID system will provide managers with improved real-time control over potential food safety problems and help to prevent wide-spread human and economic impact."

UPM Raflatac tag performance is currently being tested on shipments between Armstrong Produce and the Kaneohe, Hawaii Marine Base commissary. This important addition to the pilot program is in compliance with the Department of Defense RFID directives. “The Hawaii Produce Traceability initiative is providing UPM Raflatac with the opportunity to showcase the versatility and durability of its ShortDipole tag, which provides exceptional yields and performance throughout its lifecycle,” says Jan Svoboda, Sales and Marketing Director, Americas, RFID, UPM Raflatac.

Many of Hawaii’s leading growers, distributors and retailers, including Sugarland Farms, Hamakua Heritage Farms, Kula Country Farms, Maui Pineapple, Twin Bridge Farms, Kahuku Brand, Armstrong Produce and Foodland Stores have chosen to participate in this voluntary program. The initiative tracked several types of fresh produce including e.g. asparagus, eggplants, pineapples and tomatoes.

Funding for the pilot program was provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Development Alliance of Hawaii, Federal State Marketing Improvement Program, and Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation. The pilot has been awarded with a Computerworld Laureate Gold Medal for using information technology to benefit society.

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The combined use of different RF technologies and standards in order to improve the supply chain management has been strongly investigated in literature [13, 14]. They were also successfully applied to the agro-food sector [15, 16]. However, the development of a complete gapless traceability system, from the land to the table of the end consumer, is still at the early stages and many issues are still open. Most works propose solutions too invasive and, therefore, not accepted by the operators. A typical example concerns the use of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in greenhouses in order to achieve a precision agriculture [17–19]. Although the use of this technology promises many benefits, its adoption is very limited, since expert agronomists, that argue no sensor node can ever replace their skills, do not accept its use. Therefore, a very critical aspect in a reengineering procedure is that the proposed solution must be thoroughly understood by the operators, before to be accepted, and applied. Furthermore, costs related to the introduction of new technologies are relevant and block their wide adoption. Indeed, although most of the solutions presented in literature are exclusively based on the use of RFID tags, the cost of a tag is still too high to justify its adoption in the packaging of low cost products, such as fresh-cut products, whose price in Italy is about 1-2 euro per pack. Particular attention must be also paid to the choice of the type of tag to be used, since such tags must be used in critical conditions and, in particular, in humid environments, which absorb RF energy. Another important issue still open in the design of an effective traceability system in the fresh vegetables supply chain is related to the integration of management systems of all involved actors. Vegetables producers are generally small local farms without a proper information system, and therefore, actors interact through traditional channels (i.e., phone, fax). However, since the manufacturer can be considered the main actor of the fresh vegetables supply chain, a complete integration of the production company systems could represent an important starting point.

This work proposes an EPC-based gapless traceability system for the fresh vegetables supply chain able to exploit the combined use of different auto-identification technologies, such as RFID, NFC, and the less expensive DataMatrix. Particular attention was focused on the producer, and, therefore, on the early stages of the supply chain, which include farming in greenhouses and manufacturing of packaged vegetables. The proposed item-level tracking and tracing system is characterized by a perfect integration among the adopted hardware and software subsystems in both the greenhouses and the transformation factory, preserving the role of agronomists and reducing the costs for the adoption of new technologies. Specifically, an innovative and low-cost hybrid system, in which the gapless traceability is ensured by the combined use of EPCglobal, passive UHF RFID solution, Android NFC smartphones, NFC tags (i.e., passive HF tags), and the less expensive DataMatrix technologies, is proposed. Furthermore, an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) [20] is adopted to deploy both traditional and innovative management services in the greenhouses. A clear separation between the logical EPC-based traceability architecture, and the physical infrastructure is a key factor in the proposed system, as it ensures a smooth, gapless, and flexible product traceability both in the greenhouse and in the transformation factory. To validate the proposed reengineered model, a pilot project was implemented in a big Italian producer company. Measurements of the main Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) [13] demonstrated the benefits derived by the use of implemented traceability system in a real scenario.

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Each forklift requires...
RFID for fresh produceRFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
Android tablet
Use farmsoft on the tablet to view pallet maps (visual map shows where your required pallet is), view and select & fill orders, send invoices and more... The tablet will receive reads from the RFID reader.

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RFID pallet control tag reader
RFID reader X 2
Use any RFID reader that has emulated keyboard mode, obviously you need to match the reader with your tags and test that the readers can scan at the required distances. 865-915Mhz recommended.

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RFID fresh produce inventory USB hub
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
USB data hub
This allows multiple RFID readers to be connected to the tablet and will also power readers and keep tablet charged. This hub should have its own power supply 36W+ to ensure enough power for all connected devices.

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RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
Other bits
Tablet clamp to hold tablet on forklift, USB cables as required, USB adapter, cable ties, bracket(s) for readers.

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RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
Your choice of RFID tags for fresh produce pallet control
When you print pallet labels from farmsoft, you can scan the RFID (or two, one for each forklift pickup side) so farmsoft knows which pallet to assign the RFID. This process takes 2 seconds and can be done using a tablet or PC and an RFID reader.

Choose RFID tags that already have a unique serial number encoded into them; there is no need for your to write to the RFID. RFID stickers start from 20 cents per sticker.

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DOWNLOAD THE RFID INVENTORY CONTROL BROCHURE

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RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
3-D RFID pallet tracking.
Find pallets rapidly by viewing pallet maps, easy to select another pallet that isn’t obstructed

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Warnings during
order loading
Ensures every order is loaded perfectly by auto reading pallet RFIDs.

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DOWNLOAD THE RFID INVENTORY CONTROL BROCHURE

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How to test farmsoft RFID for fresh produce before committing to purchase:
The test below should cost no more than $150. Before you purchase bulk RFID hardware; you should buy a few testing items such as one RFID reader/scanner and three or four different types of RFID tags (make sure the tag matches the scanner, and has pre-programmed serial number) and the USB hub.

1. Plug the scanner into the hub, and the hub into any Android tablet. Open up a text document or blank email on the tablet (we just need a space where text can be dumped by the RFID reader).

2. Simulation test: On a forklift position the reader where you intend on installing it, and move the RFID tag into the position it will be on the pallet or floor and note the distances at which the reading occurs (in the blank document on the Android tablet, you will see a string of text added every time the RFID scanner reads the tag). If the RFID tags scan at reasonable distances based on where you intend to fix the reader, then this part of the test has succeeded. Otherwise reposition RFID scanner or tags until you get good results. See “How should I label my pallet positions?” for additional testing. You should test with your four different RFID tags to see if selected tags scan at different distances (this is common).

3. The Pallet Position Reader (1) should preferably not read when the fork is lifted for pallet transportation.

4. Test that your Wifi works in all coolers and warehouses (farmsoft fresh produce RFID requires an always on data connection). If you have dead spots, install boosters or Wifi access points with better antennae (note that 5Gen Wifi is pretty much useless in commercial environments because of its very short range and weak signal).

If you can pass the tests above you are ready to buy your RFID hardware for your entire fleet of forklifts. If your RFID tests didnt pass, try different hardware, different RFID tags, or different RFID read distances.

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Suggested RFID tags for fresh produce pallet inventory monitoring
We recommend 856-915Mhz RFID tags because their range is practical for most fresh produce RFID applications. You can use RFID stickers that are applied to any carton on the pallet (obviously in the correct position for scanning) and will be disposable (from 20 cents a label). Alternatively you can apply re-useable plastic reinforced RFID tags that have a greater read distance, however cost a lot more so need to be removed from the pallet when its loaded for shipping.

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RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
How to mount RFID position reader on forklift
If possible, we suggest you mount the reader on the fork that lifts when a pallet is raised (you may need a longer USB cable depending on your forklift design). This should result in no RFID reads when you pass over a position tag and the pallet is raised for movement; when you lower the pallet a position tag will be read and the pallet will be automatically deselected (if no Order is currently selected).

If you can’t mount this reader on the bottom of the fork then tags will be read every time you pass over one, in this case you can enable a setting that stops farmsoft from automatically deselecting the pallet (note you will have to tap the screen to tell farmsoft when you are deselecting a pallet in this case. Mount the reader in position indicated about 4” from the ground for optimal RFID reads.
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How to mount pallet RFID tag reader on forklift
This reader doesn’t need to move with the fork (it can however if you want), and should be mounted at the height you will apply the RFID tag on the pallet (as close to as possible, and not obstructed by metal.

Staff that build pallets should be instructed to apply the tag at a consistent height and position to ensure every pallet RFID tag will be read easily. If your RFID tag is not integrated into your pallet label then you can continue to apply your pallet label in your chosen position for easy readability.

There is no height at which the RFID tag must be placed; choose a height that is practical for your combination of forklift and reader to maximize pallet tag accuracy and RFID scan distance.

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Can I use pallets with built in RFID tags?
Yes. In this case you will mount the pallet RFID reader on the fork near the position RFID reader. The process for assigning the pallet to the RFID is the same, obviously they need to scan the pallet to get the RFID serial.

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How do I associate RFID tags with a pallet?
Simply scan the RFID after you add a new pallet in farmsoft (you will need to plug a reader into your PC [if using Android you will need a powered data hub and an external keyboard because plugging in an RFID reader will disable the software keyboard in Android OS), for this purpose the reader can simply be on a bench next to or near the PC (since users are likely printing labels during this same process), or use an Android device that has a built in RFID reader.

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How should I label my pallet positions?
Name each warehouse/cooler with a number, eg: 01, 02 etc. Isles with a number 01, 02 etc. Pallet positions with an number 01, 02 etc. If you stack pallets two high, swap the 0 for a 2, eg: 21 (level 2, position 1), 22 etc. You can tell the exact position of a pallet within your business: 01 02 04 (Cooler 1, Isle 2, Position 4). Apply RFID tags in front of each pallet position. Make sure the tag is in a position where it will be read when putting a pallet down. This is usually a few inches before the pallets physical floor space. Test before you permanently apply pallet position RFID tags by simply placing the tag on the floor and using the simulation test to check its read distance and position. To apply RFID tags for fresh produce pallet positions, chip a very shallow hole into the cement, insert RFID tag, cover over with superglue to make the surface flat and protect & preserve the RFID tag. Larger tags have better scan rates so you may choose a larger tag for your pallet positions, again, testing is essential. Paint pallet spaces on the floor to ensure pallets dropped in correct space for maximum RFID rea accuracy.

RFID pallet location map fresh produce
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
ILLUSTRATION: farmsoft fresh produce pallet location map automatically updated using RFID tags in real time. Effortless fresh produce inventory management.
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How can I make my RFID tags read at greater distance?
If you need your pallet position RFID tags to read at greater distance ask your RFID tag provider which tags can have their read range boosted by placing a metal plate under them prior to installation (or experiment yourself with your test tags).

You can also plug the USB hub (which powers the RFID reader) into a higher powered USB charger (eg: higher wattage and voltage, or use a smart adaptable maximum wattage charger). Using a hub that isn’t powered (by a higher wattage USB charger) shortens read distances by 50% in our tests. In our testing with RFID tags; we achieved maximum read distance of 9.5” / 24cm using the cheapest readers we could find (ie: if this distance doesn’t work for you [it should if you position everything correctly] then buy more expensive RFID readers and use higher power UBB hub & charger, place metal plates behind RFID pallet position tags, or use non disposable tags that are larger and have greater read distance (remove from pallets during shipping process).

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Can I skip RFID tagging pallet positions?
Yes, however users will need to select a new storage location every time they move a pallet; essentially the only benefit of using RFID for fresh produce like this would be to have the pallet automatically selected when it is picked up (for movement, and for adding to orders).

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Can I tag every case?
Yes, however this will significantly increase the cost of your RFID project (please enquire), and also increase the required hardware costs by about 400-800%. Individual case tagging requires a project to determine your exact requirements and modify farmsoft RFID to match. Please discuss this with your farmsoft consultant.

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4. Hardware Description
In this section, the main features of the auto-identification systems selected to realize the pilot project are presented. In particular, a summary of the main devices provided by the reengineered model in each area of the considered company is reported in Table 2, while more details are described in the following.

Table 2

Devices used in the pilot project.

As noted in the previous table, in the cultivation phase, the following devices are used.(i)NFC tags: identification of farmers and field areas in the greenhouse is crucial in the gapless traceability system; we used two different types of NFC tags for farmers and plots of land. In particular, for the farmer identification, we used a Mifare Ultralight NFC card by NXP Semiconductors (Figure 4(a)(1)). For the plots of land we used a Mifare Classic NFC tag by NXP Semiconductors (Figure 4(a)(2)).(ii)Portable NFC/RFID scanner: a smartphone Samsung i9023 Nexus S (Figure 4(b)(1)) connected to the UHF RFID reader BlueBerry of TERTIUM Technology (Figure 4(b)(2)) was used as portable scanner. In particular, the Samsung Nexus S is an Android smartphone equipped with NFC technology, while the BlueBerry reader is a small and easy-to-use device able to transmit the data to a mobile phone or a smartphone through the Bluetooth interface. All high-level operations, such as processing of the readings, forwarding them via text message, e-mail, or GPRS, are delegated to the device the BlueBerry reader is interfaced with. Ultimately, it represents an easy way to integrate the RFID communication system to any device equipped with a Bluetooth interface (PDA, Netbook, Notebook, PC, etc.).(iii)Passive UHF RFID tags: in order to choose the most suitable passive UHF tags to be used for our business scenario, a preliminary technological scouting has been performed. It is important to observe that the choice of the type of RFID tag is affected by different requirements as size of the tag itself, compatibility with EPCglobal standard, high scanning speed, high performance in presence of liquids and metals, low cost, and high stress of tag label during product life cycle. Therefore, after preliminary tests carried out in laboratory, we chose the passive UHF RFID tag wet inlay INSKYL3 of LABID (Figure 4(c)), whose size is 54 mm × 18 mm, equipped with the Impinj Monza 4 chip.

RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control

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RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control

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RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
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Figure 4

Main devices used in the pilot Project: (a) NFC tags: (1) Mifare Ultralight and (2) Mifare Classic; (b) portable NFC/RFID scanner composed of a (1) Samsung i9023 Nexus S and a (2) BlueBerry reader; (c) INSKYL3 passive UHF RFID tag; (d) RFID UHF gate composed of (1) Impinj Speedway Revolution R420 reader and (2) Wide Range UHF Kathrein antenna; (e) BIP-6000 of Meteor scanner; (f) Zebra RZ400 printer.

Multiple and heterogeneous devices have been chosen for the implementation of the reengineered manufacturing phase. More in detail, as shown in Table 2, the devices used in the pilot project are as follows.(i)RFID UHF Gate: An RFID UHF gate, composed of a reader Impinj Speedway Revolution R420 (Figure 4(d)(1)) connected to 4 antennas Wide Range UHF Kathrein (Figure 4(d)(2)) though coaxial cables LMR-195 with weight attenuation in the range 25–35 dB per 100 m, was used in the pilot. The reader supports EPCglobal UHF Gen 2 and ISO 18000-6C protocols. It is characterized by a maximum receive sensitivity and maximum return loss equal to −82 dBm and 10 dB, respectively. The Wide Range antennas provide frequency range of 865–870 MHz and they are characterized by a circular polarization.(ii)Portable DataMatrix/RFID scanner: in this case, the choice has been the handheld BIP-6000 of Meteor (Figure 4(e)). It is an industrial PDA designed to withstand the harshest working environments, certificate IP65 and equipped with 2D barcode reader and RFID reader. It also has integrated GPS, GSM, HSDPA, and WLAN, and a 3.0 megapixel camera with flash. In particular, this reader is equipped with the Android OS, which enables a simple integration with the connected system.(iii)DataMatrix/RFID printer: the printer Zebra RZ400 (Figure 4(f)) was selected to print 2D code and write information in the RFID tag. It is equipped with a USB 2.0 interface and supports currently available protocols, including EPC Gen 2/ISO 18000-6C.

5. Overall System Architecture
The need to preserve and adapt the functionalities offered by the existing traceability and management systems leads us to give special attention to the technologies integration procedure in the Jentu company. The main services of the greenhouse management, such as the Field Log, must continue to be provided, beside the newer ones. Moreover, the Field Log application must become part of the new traceability system; that is, the data logged through it must be shared or reused in an EPCIS style. Furthermore, the innovative hardware and software systems, introduced in the transformation factory, must work on top of the existing architecture.

In order to satisfy the systems integration requirements, a software architecture based on the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) [17] was defined. An ESB is an architecture model used for designing and implementing the interaction and communication among mutually interacting software applications in Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). It promotes agility and flexibility with regards to communication and interaction among applications.

In the next sections, more details about the different subsystems composing the whole architecture are given.

5.1. Greenhouse Management System
The combined use of Android smartphone, NFC, and RFID technologies is fundamental for the integration between the data producer (the agronomist working in the greenhouse) and the data consumer (the traceability system). Moreover, the use of smartphone enables an easily integration of the traceability system with any external device equipped with a Bluetooth interface (e.g., handheld UHF RFID communication system). The latter aspect is strongly important, as it allowed us to integrate the UHF RFID technology in a device that is not natively provided of it.

An agronomist Android app has been designed and prototyped; it can be seen as a write-only interface towards the traceability system. The agronomist uses the app for tracing the following main activities typical of a crop lifecycle:(1)LAND activity: instantiate a new cultivation in a specific area of the greenhouse;(2)FIELD_LOG activity: record a new crop observation event or intervention;(3)HARVESTING activity: mark the cultivation as cropped when it reaches the maturation date.

Each activity involves the recording of the gathered information both in the EPCIS and in the Field Log system, so that the new and the legacy systems are bridged.

The UML sequence diagram, shown in Figure 5, is used to model the full interaction between the agronomist and the traceability system architecture for the FIELD_LOG activity.




Figure 5

Sequence of interactions between the agronomist and the traceability system when a new observation or treatment is performed in the greenhouse.

The agronomist identifies herself/himself and the plot of land in the greenhouse; after filling the requested fields, she/he clicks the “Save” button and a request is built and forwarded to the ESB. Notice that a single click is needed to register the event both in the Field Log application and in the EPCIS, exploiting the high configurability of the ESB. The event is stored in the EPCIS as an ObjectEvent with the EPCIS property “ACTION” set to “OBSERVE”.

In Figure 6, a screenshot of the agronomist mobile application for the FIELD_LOG activity is shown.




Figure 6

The agronomist’s Android app interface.

The agronomist fills the following fields.(i)Agronomist. It is the full name of farmer that is encoded by the unique 7 hex digits ID stored in the farmer’s Mifare NFC badge. Every NFC tag contains a read-only factory-assigned worldwide-unique serial number that can be used as a key into a database. The agronomist is needed because every detection is mapped with the responsible farmer in the EPCIS; the farmer app automatically fills this field when a farmer NFC card is in range.(ii)Greenhouse. When the farmer wants to operate on a portion of land, she/he identifies it through the assigned NFC tag; so the field in the application is auto-filled.(iii)Date and Start/End Time. The farmer stores the treatment duration by filling the fields representing the beginning and the end of the treatment.(iv)Agricultural Phase. Each agricultural phase identifies one of the possible statuses of the considered portion of land. The farmer selects from a list the current status of the land (i.e., sowing, growing, etc.).(v)Treatment. It represents the particular operation performed by the farmer on the considered portion of land. This value is selected from a preloaded list.(vi)Commercial Product. In this field the farmer inserts the commercial product that she/he uses to facilitate and improve the achievement of specific effects on the ground and/or the plants.(vii)Machine. The farmer selects from a list the equipment she/he uses during the treatment.

Let us observe that, in order to ensure a gapless traceability, only information about the date and the time related to the execution of a treatment must be stored. It is automatically saved in the EPCIS repository when the ObjectEvent is generated. However, the Field Log system requires also the storage of the duration of each performed treatment. To meet this requirement, in an efficient but simple way, the “Date and Start/End Time” fields have been introduced in the mobile application.

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RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
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Can I substitute any brand of RFID hardware?
Yes. Just make sure it passes the tests. You can use any RFID equipment from any vendor or simply order from Amazon.com.

How do I tag positions inside our trucks?
If you tag pallet positions inside your own delivery trucks, farmsoft RFID can detect the truck that you loaded the order onto. Simply tag the pallet spaces the same way you would for a warehouse or cooler.

Can we integrate other systems with farmsoft fresh produce RFID?
Yes. Ask your solution consultant for a quote to have our team perform any integration you require. Or, if you have your own I.T. department or vendor; you can integrate using the farmsoft API which is open to all companies and vendors.

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What happens if an RFID doesn’t scan?
This can happen because the RFID has been removed/fell off, or placed well outside the scan zone. In this case the forklift driver can simply type the pallet number into farmsoft to select that pallet.

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RFID fresh produce inventory management for better traceability and less fruit & vegetable waste

Address the challenge of origin traceability in fresh produce; "Traceability - Your Product in the fresh produce pipeline," includes results of projects using RFID traceability for field to the shelf. "With recent outbreaks of food borne illnesses, the vegetable industry has been proactive in developing a plan to trace fresh produce to its origin,"​ said FFVA​ marketing & international trade division director.

The seminar, covers lessons learned in the traceability project conducted by the PMA and the Canadian Produce Marketing Association that tested the feasibility of using RFID to track product starting at the distribution level.

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rfid-fresh-produce-inventory-pallet-control
"Many obstacles were overcome during the creation of this system. The seminar will show participants how this was accomplished,"​. Guest speakers senior vice president and general merchandise manager of perishables for Wal-Mart, and Doug Grant, chief information officer for The Oppenheimer Group, a Canadian marketer of fresh produce from all over the world.

Peterson oversees all meat, produce, dairy, frozen, floral, bakery and commercial bread operations for Wal-Mart Stores, its domestic Supercenters and the new Neighborhood Markets. Grant serves on several industry committees; including co-chair of both Can-Trace and CPTTF Traceability committees. He received the 2003 Canadian Produce Man of the Year award. The convention is to be held 26 to 28 September 2004 in Florida, USA.

The ability to trace food to its origins has become an increasingly critical issue for biosecurity and food safety, and many food manufacturers are looking at how best to apply the concept to fresh produce. In a separate move, a partnership between Merit-Trax, Syscan and Sensor Wireless was recently formed for this specific purpose.

Merit-Trax Technologies has selected Syscan International as its exclusive supplier of RFID technology for its Trax-IT Fructus software application. The application is designed to record and report quality inspections and environmental conditions of fresh fruits and vegetables from harvest to retail.

"Merit-Trax has developed an innovative software/hardware offering for the fresh fruits and vegetables segment of the food industry supply chain that is a perfect fit for our RFID technology,"​ said Syscan International president Axel Striefler.

"The immense potential of the fruit and vegetable marketplace is extremely exciting for our company and the sector is highly synergistic with our meat and seafood segment. We believe that Merit-Trax will play an important role in the deployment of our technology in the Americas."​

Sensor Wireless has been selected to supply its sensor technology, which will provide environmental and physio-chemical information to complement the system.

The Merit-Trax solution provides traceability and automates the capture of the physio-chemical quality and environmental data of fresh produce. This, says the company, enables producers to measure the benefits of precision farming methods.

The technology also provides traceability to verify the quality of fresh produce as it moves through the supply chain by monitoring temperature and environmental conditions in real-time.

"Our Trax-IT Fructus software provides traceability, quality and inspection management in real-time from seed to the retailer's backdoor,"​ said Merit-Trax director of sales and marketing Bob Aubertin.

"We strongly believe that Syscan's RFID technology will play a significant role in delivering an effective, efficient, value added application for our customers."​

The application will be compliant with the EAN/UCC Global Standards for traceability and with international regulations for exporting produce to markets outside of Canada.

Particular attention must be also paid to the choice of the type of tag to be used, since such tags must be used in critical conditions and, in particular, in humid environments, which absorb RF energy. Another important issue still open in the design of an effective traceability system in the fresh vegetables supply chain is related to the integration of management systems of all involved actors. Vegetables producers are generally small local farms without a proper information system, and therefore, actors interact through traditional channels (i.e., phone, fax). However, since the manufacturer can be considered the main actor of the fresh vegetables supply chain, a complete integration of the production company systems could represent an important starting point.

This work proposes an EPC-based gapless traceability system for the fresh vegetables supply chain able to exploit the combined use of different auto-identification technologies, such as RFID, NFC, and the less expensive DataMatrix. Particular attention was focused on the producer, and, therefore, on the early stages of the supply chain, which include farming in greenhouses and manufacturing of packaged vegetables.

The proposed item-level tracking and tracing system is characterized by a perfect integration among the adopted hardware and software subsystems in both the greenhouses and the transformation factory, preserving the role of agronomists and reducing the costs for the adoption of new technologies. Specifically, an innovative and low-cost hybrid system, in which the gapless traceability is ensured by the combined use of EPCglobal, passive UHF RFID solution, Android NFC smartphones, NFC tags (i.e., passive HF tags), and the less expensive DataMatrix technologies, is proposed.

Furthermore, an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) [20] is adopted to deploy both traditional and innovative management services in the greenhouses. A clear separation between the logical EPC-based traceability architecture, and the physical infrastructure is a key factor in the proposed system, as it ensures a smooth, gapless, and flexible product traceability both in the greenhouse and in the transformation factory. To validate the proposed reengineered model, a pilot project was implemented in a big Italian producer company. Measurements of the main Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) [13] demonstrated the benefits derived by the use of implemented traceability system in a real scenario.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the reference scenario, highlighting main problems. The proposed reengineered model and its implementation in a real pilot project are reported in Section 3. Main details related to the software system architecture are summarized in Section 4. In Section 5, a description of the hardware adopted in our work is reported. A system validation is discussed in Section 6. Finally, Section 7 summarizes the conclusions and sketches future works.

Innovative gapless traceability system able to improve the main business processes of the fresh vegetables supply chain. The performed analysis highlighted some critical aspects in the management of the whole supply chain, from the land to the table of the end consumer, and allowed us to reengineer the most important processes. In particular, the first steps of the supply chain, which include cultivation in greenhouses and manufacturing of packaged vegetables, were analyzed. The re-engineered model was designed by exploiting the potentialities derived from the combined use of innovative Radio Frequency technologies, such as RFID and NFC, and important international standards, such as EPCglobal.

The proposed tracing and tracking system allows the end consumer to know the complete history of the purchased product. Furthermore, in order to evaluate the potential benefits of the reengineered processes in a real supply chain, a pilot project was implemented in an Italian food company, which produces ready-to-eat vegetables, known as IV gamma products. Finally, some important metrics have been chosen to carry out the analysis of the potential benefits derived from the use of the re-engineered model.

The ability to track and trace complete information at item level in an efficient and trustworthy manner is becoming more and more important for companies, mainly due to the increased consumer concern over the safety and the quality of the purchased products.

This is even more true for companies involved in the fresh vegetables supply chain, because the delicacy of fresh-cut products requires all stakeholders to organize their business processes as efficiently as possible to guarantee the end customers the highest quality products.
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rfid-fresh-produce-inventory-pallet-control
rfid-fresh-produce-inventory-pallet-control
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The shift from quantity-oriented agriculture to new emphasis on products quality and people’s safety has placed new demands for the development and adoption of traceable supply chains. Traceability represents the ability to capture, collect, and store information related to all processes in the supply chain in a manner that provides guarantee to the consumer and other stakeholders on the origin, location and life history of a product.

In particular, the adoption of an effective gapless traceability system, in the fresh vegetables supply chain, could enable companies to (i) detect warnings associated with product contaminations quickly and accurately, and (ii) optimize their main production processes in order to reduce cultivation costs and to ensure, at the same time, production optimization. Furthermore, an efficient traceability system represents a fundamental tool for people with special needs, such as patients affected by multiple intolerances [1], who struggle every day to perform elementary actions, such as the choice of food, because of the adverse reactions that particular components could cause if taken.

The development of an efficient traceability system requires the introduction in the supply chain of the technological innovations needed for product identification, process characterization, information capture, analysis, storage, and transmission, as well as the overall systems integration. These technologies include hardware (such as identification tags and labels) and software (computer programs and information systems) solutions.

In particular, two of the most important auto-identification technologies able to optimize the critical processes in a supply chain are Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) [2] and Near Field Communication (NFC) [3]. They promise to replace the traditional optical auto-identification solutions in near future. Among the different types (i.e., passive, semipassive, and active) of RFID transponders, often called “tags”, the passive ones are used in most tracing systems, because they are characterized by a very low cost and small dimensions, since they do not require battery to operate.

Passive RFID tags can also be classified according to the frequency band used (e.g., LF, HF, UHF, etc.) and the type of coupling (i.e., magnetic or electromagnetic) between tag antenna and reader antenna. The UHF tags could occasionally encounter problems, causing performance degradation, in the presence of materials, such as liquids and metals, which absorb Radio Frequency (RF) energy. However, some recent works [4–7] have demonstrated that the design of particular UHF tags is able to resolve such issues, thus demonstrating that they represent the best solution for item-level tracing systems in the whole supply chain.

NFC is a short-range wireless (HF 13.56 MHz) technology derived from the RFID family. NFC entities can share power and data over a distance of a few centimetres (less than 5 cm). They inherit the basic features of RFID technology (i.e., working in reader/writer mode with passive tags) but they are also characterized by the possibility to share data across active (powered) devices [8]. The diffusion of these RF technologies has been significantly increased by the asserting of international standards such as EPCglobal [9–12] and Global Standard 1 (GS1).

In particular, the EPCglobal standard provides a promising open architecture for tracking and tracing objects over the Internet. It defines a full protocol stack able to guarantee item-level data sharing related to products that move in the whole supply chain.

The combined use of different RF technologies and standards in order to improve the supply chain management has been strongly investigated in literature [13, 14]. They were also successfully applied to the agro-food sector [15, 16]. However, the development of a complete gapless traceability system, from the land to the table of the end consumer, is still at the early stages and many issues are still open.

Most works propose solutions too invasive and, therefore, not accepted by the operators. A typical example concerns the use of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in greenhouses in order to achieve a precision agriculture [17–19]. Although the use of this technology promises many benefits, its adoption is very limited, since expert agronomists, that argue no sensor node can ever replace their skills, do not accept its use. Therefore, a very critical aspect in a re-engineering procedure is that the proposed solution must be thoroughly understood by the operators, before to be accepted, and applied. Furthermore, costs related to the introduction of new technologies are relevant and block their wide adoption. Indeed, although most of the solutions presented in literature are exclusively based on the use of RFID tags, the cost of a tag is still too high to justify its adoption in the packaging of low cost products, such as fresh-cut products, whose price in Italy is about 1-2 euro per pack.

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RFID implementation in fresh food / perishable produce businesses...
The ability to track and trace complete information at item level in an efficient and trustworthy manner is becoming more and more important for companies, mainly due to the increased consumer concern over the safety and the quality of the purchased products. This is even more true for companies involved in the fresh vegetables supply chain, because the delicacy of fresh-cut products requires all stakeholders to organize their business processes as efficiently as possible to guarantee the end customers the highest quality products.

The shift from quantity-oriented agriculture to new emphasis on products quality and people’s safety has placed new demands for the development and adoption of traceable supply chains. Traceability represents the ability to capture, collect, and store information related to all processes in the supply chain in a manner that provides guarantee to the consumer and other stakeholders on the origin, location and life history of a product. In particular, the adoption of an effective gapless traceability system, in the fresh vegetables supply chain, could enable companies to (i) detect warnings associated with product contaminations quickly and accurately, and (ii) optimize their main production processes in order to reduce cultivation costs and to ensure, at the same time, production optimization. Furthermore, an efficient traceability system represents a fundamental tool for people with special needs, such as patients affected by multiple intolerances, who struggle every day to perform elementary actions, such as the choice of food, because of the adverse reactions that particular components could cause if taken.
‍

rfid-fresh-produce-inventory-pallet-control
rfid-fresh-produce-inventory-pallet-control
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The combined use of different RF technologies and standards in order to improve the supply chain management has been strongly investigated in literature. They were also successfully applied to the agro-food sector. However, the development of a complete gapless traceability system, from the land to the table of the end consumer, is still at the early stages and many issues are still open. Most works propose solutions too invasive and, therefore, not accepted by the operators. A typical example concerns the use of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in greenhouses in order to achieve a precision agriculture.

Although the use of this technology promises many benefits, its adoption is very limited, since expert agronomists, that argue no sensor node can ever replace their skills, do not accept its use. Therefore, a very critical aspect in a reengineering procedure is that the proposed solution must be thoroughly understood by the operators, before to be accepted, and applied. Furthermore, costs related to the introduction of new technologies are relevant and block their wide adoption. Indeed, although most of the solutions presented in literature are exclusively based on the use of RFID tags, the cost of a tag is still too high to justify its adoption in the packaging of low cost products, such as fresh-cut products, whose price in Italy is about 1-2 euro per pack. Particular attention must be also paid to the choice of the type of tag to be used, since such tags must be used in critical conditions and, in particular, in humid environments, which absorb RF energy.



The development of an efficient traceability system requires the introduction in the supply chain of the technological innovations needed for product identification, process characterization, information capture, analysis, storage, and transmission, as well as the overall systems integration. These technologies include hardware (such as identification tags and labels) and software (computer programs and information systems) solutions. In particular, two of the most important auto-identification technologies able to optimize the critical processes in a supply chain are Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) and Near Field Communication (NFC).

They promise to replace the traditional optical auto-identification solutions in near future. Among the different types (i.e., passive, semipassive, and active) of RFID transponders, often called “tags”, the passive ones are used in most tracing systems, because they are characterized by a very low cost and small dimensions, since they do not require battery to operate. Passive RFID tags can also be classified according to the frequency band used (e.g., LF, HF, UHF, etc.) and the type of coupling (i.e., magnetic or electromagnetic) between tag antenna and reader antenna. The UHF tags could occasionally encounter problems, causing performance degradation, in the presence of materials, such as liquids and metals, which absorb Radio Frequency (RF) energy. However, some recent works have demonstrated that the design of particular UHF tags is able to resolve such issues, thus demonstrating that they represent the best solution for item-level tracing systems in the whole supply chain.

NFC is a short-range wireless (HF 13.56 MHz) technology derived from the RFID family. NFC entities can share power and data over a distance of a few centimeters (less than 5 cm). They inherit the basic features of RFID technology (i.e., working in reader/writer mode with passive tags) but they are also characterized by the possibility to share data across active (powered) devices. The diffusion of these RF technologies has been significantly increased by the asserting of international standards such as EPCglobal and Global Standard 1 (GS1). In particular, the EPCglobal standard provides a promising open architecture for tracking and tracing objects over the Internet. It defines a full protocol stack able to guarantee item-level data sharing related to products that move in the whole supply chain.

Another important issue still open in the design of an effective traceability system in the fresh vegetables supply chain is related to the integration of management systems of all involved actors. Vegetables producers are generally small local farms without a proper information system, and therefore, actors interact through traditional channels (i.e., phone, fax). However, since the manufacturer can be considered the main actor of the fresh vegetables supply chain, a complete integration of the production company systems could represent an important starting point.

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Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software
farmsoft Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solutions make fresh produce handling easy by generating PTI labels, tracking traceability, generating documentation, and making audits easy and efficient. Guaranteed to improve food safety processes.
Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solution for packers of fruit and vegetables: processors, exporters and wholesalers of fresh produce.
Control the entire fruit packaging, sales and distribution processes.
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Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solutions from farmsoft guides employees through the entire Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solution process, making sure every action is taken at the correct time, and correct traceability details are being preserved at every step. This results in reduced waste and increased employee productivity by following correct food handling and food safety processes for post harvest activities in Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solution environments. From receiving fresh produce into your packing and processing facility, thru quality control, packing, washing, sorting, grading, packaging and value adding. The farmsoft Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solution follows the fresh produce thru the sales and dispatch process, and allows for rapid traceability and recalls in the event of a food safety recall or supplier quality issue. Designed specifically for fruit and vegetable growers, packers, processors and wholesalers – farmsoft delivers accurate traceability management and improved business management efficiency. Guarantee compliance with traceability standards both domestic and international.

For enterprise
For a Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solution that requires easy management of fruit handling, storage, fruit packaging, processing, and sales – choose the farmsoft Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solution. Using farmsoft Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solution, your fruit packaging facility can implement higher traceability and food safety standards. Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solution from farmsoft concentrate on the reduction of post harvest waste and fresh produce spoilage. Your farmsoft Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solution expert can provide your fruit packaging facility with expert advice and guide your team through the implementation process to ensure your Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solution is up and running in no time at all. During this process, various farmsoft fruit packaging functionality will be tweaked to ensure the Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solution provides all possible benefits and cost savings for your fruit packaging facility. The Enterprise edition of farmsoft Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software solution includes exclusive functionality not available in other editions of farmsoft (see comparison between Enterprise and Small Business editions).

Full support, full training, all features & benefits included.

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RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
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Wholesale RFID Fresh produce management software
The complexities and subtleties underlying the concept of quality as applied to the agri-food sector, underlying its components, the implicit and explicit needs to which a product must conform and the implications of this new approach throughout the chain. Activity 1 will be used for this purpose, a simple definition of quality to which progressively new elements are incorporated to explain the complexity of the notion. The participants assembled in teams and with the support of reference materials, analyse the importance of processes for the quality of horticultural produce, considering relations between standardization, certification of quality attributes and accreditation of certification systems.

The importance of appropriate post-harvest handling of produce to preserve quality as a differentiating factor and as a market opening tool.

On the processes of respiration, transpiration and ethylene production, relating directly with the senescence of perishable produce. Using examples he will clearly identify the relations between primary causes of produce deterioration (biological/physiological/mechanical/physical) and other causes resulting from inadequate handling during harvest and post-harvest (transportation, packaging, storage, etc.). Briefly show some available technologies minimizing quality and safety losses and making the post-harvest handling of produce more efficient (reduced microbiological contamination, minimized water losses, reduced ethylene damage and insect control).

A case study, based on hazard analysis (damages) associated to quality losses, clarifies strategies to approach quality assurance programmes for fresh horticultural produce.

Discuss the limitations detected in post-harvest of fresh fruits and vegetables for each country from the standpoint of infrastructure, available information, research and training of the actors in the chain.

* understanding of the components of quality and the procedures involved to determine produce quality;

* opportunities provided by post-harvest technologies to profit from market openings, reduce inefficiencies in the chain and improve competiveness;

* identified the relations between quality standardization processes, quality certification processes and accreditation of certification systems required for the successful implementation of quality and safety assurance programs;

* critical procedures to maintain quality and safety of fresh fruits and vegetables, throughout the post-harvest handling chain; available post-harvest technologies that reduce risks associated with quality losses and safety of horticultural produce;

Food can transmit disease from person to person as well as serve as a growth medium for bacteria that can cause food poisoning. In developed countries there are intricate standards for food preparation, whereas in lesser developed countries the main issue is simply the availability of adequate safe water, which is usually a critical item.[1] In theory, food poisoning is 100% preventable. The five key principles of food hygiene, according to WHO, are:[2]

Prevent contaminating food with pathogens spreading from people, pets, and pests.
Separate raw and cooked foods to prevent contaminating the cooked foods.
Cook foods for the appropriate length of time and at the appropriate temperature to kill pathogens.
Store food at the proper temperature.
Do use safe water and safe raw materials.
Reference: Less fresh produce waste more traceability Accurate inventory shipping fruit handling guidelines traceability guidelines food safety fresh produce traceability.

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RFID forklift scanner gives up-to-date overviews of internal logistics movements
Where in the warehouse are the forklifts? Which goods are they transporting and where are these items being placed? Routes can be efficiently organized. This is done by using automatic location and loading controls and route registration. Companies can also get an accurate, up-to-date overview of their internal logistics movements.

RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
In order to locate forklifts, Aucxis fits them with passive RFID's. Aucxis is a Belgian automation company. Determining the forklifts' locations can be done in realtime. It can also be done on a continuous basis at a single site or at strategic places. These locations can, for example, be zones changes - floor location, shelf location. They can also be at scanning, pick-up, drop-off, and so on.

Floor tags are easily place in the floor. These act as marking points for the creation of a clear location grid. No complex infrastructure is needed for this.

Forklifts can also be equipped with detection equipment. This is used to read RFID tags or barcodes (1D/2D). This equipment ensures the automatic scanning and registration of transported items. This is also true for load carries such as pallets, boxes, and containers. Manual scanning is used as little as possible.

Click here for the project example: Veiling Zaltbommel

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RFID system looks to improve freshness monitoring
In an interconnected world, fresh produce is shipped frequently, often across continents. Making sure produce is fresh is key to making the cold chain work, and that involves accurately monitoring product shelf-life. Intelleflex, a company which specializes in tracking solutions using radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, works to make the tracking process more accurate, and has been attracting interest from several sectors of the produce industry.

Intelleflex provides monitoring and tracking solutions using battery assisted passive (BAP) RFID technology. An RFID system uses small tags to identify and track things and the Intelleflex solution also adds sensor capabilities to monitor temperatures and other conditions. The produce industry has traditionally used this technology to track product throughout the cold chain. The advantages of the BAP system that Intelleflex offers, in addition to the sensor capabilities, are cost and accuracy. Compared to older, passive systems, the BAP system allows for greater range and data capabilities, and compared to active systems, it is more cost-effective and can thus be deployed widely throughout the shipping process. Because of these advantages, tags can be placed inside individual pallets and the temperature and relative shelf-life of produce can be tracked at the individual pallet level.


RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control


The ability to accurately measure the temperature of individual pallets makes the system attractive to growers who wish to reduce the amount of produce wasted through processing, precool and shipping.

“What we're able to do is evaluate the relative quality and freshness of the product,” says Kevin Payne of Intelleflex.


RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
“We found that temperature variation is significant, even within a single packing house,” he adds, “and that can be due to when the fruit is picked, how it's shipped and where it's stored. The resulting temperature variation can cause significant aging in the field before the product even reaches the packing house. Every hour the produce spends above 70 degrees, it ages about one day. So if it sits for four hours and the temperature is above 70 degrees before it gets to the packing house, it may have aged up to four days.”

That can lead to variations in freshness inside a single freight container. If temperature and freshness is not monitored on a pallet level, the result could be mistakes when evaluating produce quality.

“If the retailer pulls one pallet from a truck, they'll assume the entire trailer is like that, and if it's not fresh, they'll reject the entire truck,” he says.

In such a case, the grower eats the cost of wasted produce. What pallet-level monitoring allows is a shipping system with more uniformity of freshness.

“What we enable growers to do is, instead of visual inspection, know the shelf-life based on a temperature history so pallets can be built in ways that every pallet in a shipment has the same shelf-life.”

Such a system would allow a grower to ship produce with the longest remaining shelf-life to destinations which take longer to reach.

Payne notes that, although the system has attracted interest from growers, it's also appealing to the food service industry, since better monitoring of produce freshness ensures quality products for their customers.

And it's also led to partnerships with the insurance industry.

“We recently partnered with The Hartford where we're working to help reduce insurance rates for those who insure their produce,” he says.

The aim is to better track produce, and in that way reduce loss due to spoilage on insured shipments. With fewer losses, claims and rates may go down.

Finally, Payne notes that the effort to better track food shipments can serve a broader goal.

“With more people on earth, we run into the problem of how to feed so many people. One way is to just grow more food, but another thing that can be done is to manage food shipments more efficiently. A large percentage of the food currently grown is wasted, and if we can reduce that waste, it would go a long way toward feeding the world's population.”

For more information:
Kevin Payne
Intelleflex
Tel: +1 408-200-6567
Mob: +1 408-910-1726
kpayne@intelleflex.com
www.intelleflex.com

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AU: RFID monitoring is suited to regular routes
As supply chains adapt to Covid-19 social distancing requirements, autonomous reporting technologies like RFID (radio frequency identification) offer a consignment monitoring solution with minimal human intervention. RFID is used to reliably gather temperature data along regular, high volume supply chains and offers the potential to make improvements at predetermined links in the chain.

Manbulloo was the first Australian grower to export R2E2 mangoes directly to mainland China and South Korea. Part of their success is due to cultivating close, trusting relationships with supply chain partners. The ability to retrieve temperature data from the cold chain and share that with supply chain partners has been key to building that trust. The temperature data is critical to making improvements in supply chain practices, building trust and commitment with partners and delivering consistently high-quality product with longer shelf life.

Scott Ledger, Export Manager at Manbulloo said that, with the help of the Serviced Supply Chain team, they started looking for alternatives to USB temperature loggers, mainly because the logger recovery rate was less than 25%. SIM-based loggers were just becoming affordable, but none had approval on airlines with regular flights from Australia. So, they evaluated an RFID temperature monitoring system about 4 years ago. The loggers do not require airline approval, and the autonomous upload of data using communication units overcomes the difficulties of retrieving data from USB devices.

Another benefit of RFID is the automatically generated SMS or email alerts to approved supply chain members notifying of consignment arrival and key consignment information such as a summary of the temperature data and alerts of any temperature deviations outside set limits.

The RFID system requires the placement of the communication units at strategic points in the chain. Scott placed the communication units at the packhouse, the freight forwarder and at the importer in China and South Korea. “We chose these points based on two factors. It’s where temperatures sometimes started going wrong and where we had supply chain partners who could fix the problem if it arose,” said Scott. The RFID system is generally only cost effective for high volume chains where there is repeat business.

Good communication and training with staff is important to ensure correct installation and reliable operation. Over the 4 years, accessing and sharing the data with supply chain partners has increased shelf life of the fruit on arrival at the importer by up to 50% by:

Ensuring cooling of mangoes down to 13˚C before dispatch from the pack-shed and cutting the time spent at the facility by half. This has included better use of fan-forced cooling.
Re-cooling of some consignments back down to 13˚C by the freight forwarder
Requesting importers to adjust holding temperatures when these deviate from the preferred range
Scott said, “All up, this has meant faster movement through the chain at more appropriate temperatures”.

Some of the pros and cons of the RFID system are listed in Table 1.

Table 1- Pros and cons of RFID temperature monitoring systems.

RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
On the right is an example of an RFID logger and communication unit. The logger is placed in the consignment, and the communication unit placed at strategic locations along the supply chain.

Some examples of RFID products on the Australian market include Xsense, Sensitech Coldstream RF and Emerson Autosense Inbound. Visit our website for more information on the supply chain innovation research program and access to factsheets on temperature monitoring technologies.

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Business expenses better under control with new Nomad RFID key

The unique wireless labour registration system of Nomad, which amongst others, consists of imput equipment, with which all labour and production data are accurately recorded, has been extended with new RFID cards and keys. The user friendly RFID system of Hoogendoorn makes scanning without contact possible. The advantage is that environmental factors, such as light and pollution, no longer influence the scanning performance. The scan results of RFID keys are therefore very reliable. Entrepreneurs in glasshouse horticulture are therefore still in a better position to limit expenses of personnel

and protection means to a minimum.

RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control
RFID Fresh produce inventory pallet control


Nomad labour registration

Nomad is a wireless real-time system from Hoogendoorn, which registers data and analyses cultivation yield, labour productivity and illnesses and pests. This information, which is supplied in detail, is used by nurserymen and growers to optimize their management. Practical situations show that horticultural companies with labour registration may well be able to save 15% of the cost of labour, because staff can be used in a more efficient manner.

Nomad extended with RFID key and card

Within the company Hoogendoorn a lot of attention is being paid to the development of existing solutions. Close contact with clients has led to a new and reliable manner of scanning. The innovative RFID system, which consists of a RFID tag (scanning card) and a NOMAD key (scanner), which supply the RFID reader, makes imput without contact possible. The RFID cards are the size of a bankcard. They can even self be programmed and can simply and quickly be scanned from close-by. The advantage is that environmental factors, such as light and pollution, have no influence on the scanning results. In this way imput is without interference and without mistake. The RFID system supplies reliable information about all labour and production data. Entrepreneurs in horticulture are therefore even better able to limit business expenses to a minimum.

Introduction

The user friendly RFID registration system will be introduced during the Tuinbouw Relationship Days (14, 15 and 16 February) in Gorinchem.

At stand 436 the standholders of Hoogendoorn look forward to demonstrate to their visitors how the NOMAD RFID system makes business expenses clear and manageable.

About Hoogendoorn

Hoogendoorn are supplier of innovative automation solutions in the areas of climate, water, energy and information management in glasshouse horticulture. Hoogendoorn is a worldwide supplier with dealers. agents and own offices in more than 20 countries. Hoogendoornn is part of Batenburg Techniek. This group consist of 13 independent operating installation companies. These technical trading companies supply products and solutions in the areas of electro technique, electronics, energy and fastening techniques to clients and principals in industry, horticulture and the infra-structure.

Netherlands: RFID for efficient management pallet boxes at Veiling Zaltbommel
Annually at Veiling Zaltbommel 18,000 wooden and plastic pallet boxes are delivered filled with top fruit. These are stored in 70 ULO (Ultra Low Oxygen) storage cells. Aucxis was employed to automate the registration of the import by hand, export and placing of the pallet boxes in the cooling complex of Zaltbommel with RFID technology, so that a real time picture can be arranged of the actual number of pallet boxes in the cold stores.


Structure of project
• The delivery of a unique pallet box with integrated
RFID-tag.
• The RFID-reader of the filled pallet boxes on the fork-lift trucks and the RFID floor tags.
• The registration of every incoming and outgoing

movement in each individual cold store on the basis

of the floor tags
• A cold store stock program showing which pallet boxes

have been placed in the cells.



Printed label with RFID-tag


Screenshot fork-lift track terminal

Result:
• Veiling Zaltbommel has accurate information at all times regarding the number of pallet boxes in each cell
• Manual registration of movements of pallet boxes no longer required
• Advantages summarized:
-100% accurate data in real time
-Increased efficiency
-Time saving
-Cost saving



For more information:
www.Veling-zaltbommel.nl

Sensor tag detects food spoilage
VTT has developed a sensor that detects ethanol in the headspace of a food package. Ethanol is formed as a result of food spoilage. The sensor signal is wirelessly readable, for instance, by a mobile phone. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd is searching for a partner in order to commercialise the sensor.

The sensor monitors ethanol emitted from the spoilage of foods into the headspace of a package. Ethanol, in addition to carbon dioxide, was found to be the main volatile spoilage metabolite in fresh-cut fruit. The information given by the sensor is transmitted from the package to the customer by means of a reader, and the data is saved digitally in a remote server.



This ethanol sensor can have potential in other applications, such as in alcometers.

The sensor layer is part of a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag, and the sensor data can be read wirelessly using an RFID reader in, for example, a smartphone. The sensor transmits information about the freshness of the food in the package to the retailer or customer. The freshness data can be stored in real time in the cloud, enabling the comparison of food quality with its previous or later condition.

A similar optical readout based on the colour change of the ethanol sensor was also developed for a smart-phone.

The sensor and the RFID tag can using printing techniques be manufactured into a label or sticker and easily attached to a food package. The price of the sensor will then be low enough for use in food packages.

Using the sensor, it will be possible to control the food quality throughout the distribution chain and to prevent waste caused by spoilage. More than 100 tonnes of food products end up in waste annually (estimation 2014) in Europe, and the amount will rise to 126 million tonnes in the year 2020 if nothing changes.

The sensor is developed in the European project SusFoFlex Smart and sustainable food packaging utilizing flexible printed intelligence and materials technologies, EU 7th Framework Programme Agreement No 289829. The invention is currently in the process of being patented.

Please visit vttresearch.com for more information.