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.
Highlights
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
The system provides the capability of using KPIs from the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) [61]
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
Summary
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. 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. Various sensor technologies, incorporated to IoT systems, support technologies involved in each stage of the food supply chain, 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. 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.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
