THE POWER OF AN INTEGRATED MONITORING TECHNOLOGY SYSTEM FOR MINIMIZING QUALITY AND FOOD SAFETY RISKS IN FRESH PRODUCE SUPPLY CHAIN

Abstract

The fresh food industry is plagued with a large percentage of waste and significant food safety issues in its supply chain. About one-third of fresh produce goes to waste because of improper sanitary, temperature and RH handling. Similarly, in the US there are, annually, approximately 76 million incidents of food poisoning, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths with direct economic cost of over USD $ 35 billion. A number of technologies have been developed to deal with waste and food safety risks, e.g., data loggers, gas chromatographs, and pathogen detection devices (e.g., 3M Molecular detection System). Unfortunately all such devices are independent of each other, fragmented in their data stream, and prevent decision makers from having a full view of risks associated with the consumption of perishable goods. To overcome such deficiencies, the Xsense ® technology was designed as a platform for real time data collection, data communication and information. At its core, the technology is conceived as a tag capable of carrying multiple sensor devices, collecting data on temperature, RH, and various volatile and pathogen specific gases. Data collection is in real time, using novel and advanced active RF-based mesh networking communication technology, and transmitting the collected data along with GPS locations through an innovative Communication Device to a centralized data center (server in a cloud) to enable the construction of data mining for the purpose of information generation through analytics processes. The Xsense ® system offers a holistic approach to the mitigation of risks associated with quality, freshness, and food safety in the supply chain. Once the data have been collected and transmitted, the Xsense ® technology generates, among other things, Cold Chain Logistic (CCL) scores and Pallets in Risk (PIR) indicators, thereby enabling the transformation of inventory management from First-in-First-Out (FIFO) to First-Expired-First-Out (FEFO).