Use of RFID Tags for Data Storage on Quality Control in Cheese Industries

Abstract

The current laws that regulate the food security in the European Union lay down the principles and general requirements of the food legislation. In the article 3 of the Regulation 178/2002 the traceability is defined as the “ability to trace and follow a food, feed, foodproducing animal or substance intended to be, or expected to be incorporated into a food or feed, through all stages of production, processing and distribution”. In addition, “the food traceability must be guaranteed in all the stages described above: production, transformation and distribution” which implies the obligation of being able of identifying every product in the company providing a complete information about it (Regulation 178, 2002). Depending on the activity in the food chain three different types of traceability can be distinguished: 1) Back traceability, called “suppliers traceability” as well, refers to the possibility of having knowledge of what products are coming into the company, where are they coming from as well as which farmers are their suppliers. 2) Internal traceability or “process traceability” refers to the information about what is made, from what it is made, how and when it is made and the identification of the product. 3) Forward traceability or “client traceability” means the possibility of knowing what products the company delivers, when and to whom they have been supplied (Coscaron et al. 2007; Spanish Agency for Food Security, 2004). Although the law imposes a generic obligation of traceability, it is not mentioned the way in which companies can achieve that goal (Decree 1808, 1991; Decree 217, 2004). Nowadays, the sector of cheese production has no a procedure that exhaustively guarantees a proper traceability throughout all the fabrication stages. The main problem is the cheese ripening, done in special chambers as shown in Figure 1. The surrounding conditions in these rooms, such as humidity, temperature, product handling (turning), mould and flora growing avoid the individual labeling of the products. Is for this that the production and quality control are performed by batches and the data storage of the information is done manually by the company staff. 13