RFID and Cold Chain Visibility:
Hawaii Puts Technology to the Test
Food quality and safety concerns lead to innovation in fresh food supply chain.
By Jeff Tazelaar
Kula Country Farms, located on Maui, consists of approximately 68 acres of farm land with their main crop being strawberries. They pack a single case of strawberries with eight one-pound plastic containers of berries. A single pallet consists of 72 cartons of strawberries; at Kula six pallets are harvested daily. It takes approximately 30 minutes to transport the product from the harvest field to the cooler storage. The cooler storage can accommodate a maximum of 12 to 13 pallets and all produce is sold within two to three days.
In the past couple of years, we've seen a number of alarming outbreaks of E.coli O157:H7 in fresh produce. Cases involving spinach, lettuce, and green onions have proliferated, resulting in huge nationwide recalls and, tragically, causing hundreds of people to become sick or die. While the causes of these outbreaks vary in source and degree, the need for a common remedy has become very clear. The produce industry needs an effective system for tracking-and-tracing product through its supply chain to aid in preventing such outbreaks from occurring. And if an outbreak does occur, they need a failsafe system in place to identify and pull contaminated product before it reaches the consumer.
In the wake of these outbreaks, it has become clear that there are real vulnerabilities in the fresh food supply chain. Add to this the recent cases of imported food and meat contamination and the very real threat of bioterrorism attacks on the nation's food supply, and the situation becomes even more dire. While the U.S. government has been quick to react and address strengthening food safety regulations and the system of inspections through the legislative process or through more study, such as the Food Safety Commission recently created by President Bush to address food importing practices, many in the industry feel that more laws and more inspectors are not the answer.
Forty percent of all Sugarland tomatoes go to Armstrong Produce—approximately 1,500-2,000 cartons per week. There are three to five shipments to Armstrong on a daily basis.
The need for innovation
To produce industry leaders, it has become clear that the real key to solving the problem is not more government regulations and inspections, but more effective and voluntary industry self-monitoring. One hundred and eleven members of the Western Growers Association, one of the largest produce trade associations in the country representing farmers in both Arizona and California, this year signed the Leafy Greens Marketing Act, which provides for new voluntary safety standards and allows consumers to be able to tell which lettuce, spinach, and other greens meet the new standards by looking for the state-certified stamp of approval.
And just this past October, The Produce Marketing Association (PMA), Canadian Produce Marketing Association (CPMA), and United Fresh Produce Association (UFPA) announced plans to form a joint Produce Traceability Initiative to drive broad adoption of consistent traceability best practices throughout the produce supply chain. Data collection is key to being able to take quick, decisive action when problems arise. While their focus is still an overriding concern for consumer safety, industry leaders understand that they need new and innovative ways to regain consumer confidence in their products and build consumer trust that food producers have taken every step they can to ensure the safety of the foods we eat.
To this end, the State of Hawaii Department of Agriculture has initiated a far-reaching RFID-based track-and-trace pilot program that will track the route of produce moving from the grower to the distribution center and on to the retail store and consumer, culminating in a mock recall to prove the system's effectiveness. State officials have set a goal to be able to remove at-risk produce from the supply chain in under an hour. While the immediate goal of the pilot is to prove out the technology, the ultimate goal is to add value and enhance Hawaii's already successful "Seal of Quality" and other fresh produce marketing efforts. The pilot system will provide an audit trail and identifiable standards of excellence in food safety, quality, branding, and intellectual property that will improve the marketability of Hawaii agricultural products and help protect the welfare of consumers.
Packed lettuce cartons from Hamakua Springs Country Farms, which is located on the slopes of Mauna Kea in Pepe'ekeo on the Big Island of Hawaii and run by three generations of the Ha family.
John Ryan, Administrator for the Quality Assurance Division of Hawaii's Department of Agriculture, is a visionary in creating an adoptable food safety system while keeping the real world impacts on the produce industry at the forefront of the system. According to Ryan: "It is time for agriculture to move into the 21st century and start using tools and technologies that really help us achieve higher quality and food safety standards, well beyond what government inspections and audits are capable off. Our RFID-based traceability pilot is a giant leap in the right direction."
In addition to increasing consumer confidence, the pilot will assure that Hawaii's farmers are supported through supply chain efficiency, accountability and security—a key competitive marketing strategy. The state-hosted pilot program is funded by grants from the Economic Development Alliance of Hawaii, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Rolls of pre-printed RFID labels will be provided to Hamakua Springs. Every carton of lettuce being shipped to Armstrong Produce will be tagged by the shipping manager when being staged for shipment.
A true "farm to fork" traceability solution
Hawaiian-grown lettuce, strawberries, and tomatoes will be included in the pilot and involves participation by growers, distributors, and retailers of all sizes. Sugarland Farms, Hamakua Springs Country Farms, Kula Country Farms, Armstrong Produce, and Foodland Stores are participating in the initial deployment. The plan is to expand the program to include 5,000 farms statewide within three years.
Armstrong Produce is the largest wholesale produce distribution center in Hawaii and is located in Honolulu. The warehouse maintains a controlled temperature of 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit and typically ships five days a week. The Armstrong warehouse has five receiving dock doors and six shipping dock doors at the front and a series of cooler storage throughout the back of the facility. All tomatoes from Sugarland and lettuce from Hamakua Springs coming into this facility will already have RFID tags on them and will be read at the receiving area. Approximately 300 cases of tomatoes from Sugarland are shipped to 18 Foodland stores every week.
In the pilot project, each box of produce will be pre-tagged in the field with a waterproof RFID label. RFID read points will be strategically situated at various zones at each facility. Using a combination of Motorola MC9090 handheld RFID readers in the field and RFID portals with XR440 fixed readers across the supply chain, the data collected will include physical location (farm level), logical location (shipping), serialized case code (SGTIN), and a date-time stamp, with data automatically uploaded into a tracking server and database. GlobeRanger's iMotion™ edgeware platform will support device and business applications residing on the server, ensuring a total "farm to fork" harvest solution for the state of Hawaii.
Much more efficient that paper-based and barcode systems, Lowry has developed the tracking system utilizing EPCglobal standards to include multiple data streams: Field-level data collection (Kula Farms); an automated receiving process at the distributor level (Armstrong); shipping process verification (Sugarland, Hamakua, and Armstrong); merchandising visibility via a read at the door to the sales floor (Foodland); and end-of-life visibility with trash compactor and recycle bin reads (Foodland). This last stage is critical to ensure that product is not placed in re-used cases. A state-hosted database will include the product ID numbers for boxes and pallets, enabling all produce entered into the system to be traced back to its farm of origin.
Foodland grocery store receiving dock and Foodland Stores is a chain of grocery stores in Hawaii with 29 branches across the islands. On a daily basis a limited number of produce cartons of different product type are received at the grocery stores. For example, five cases of tomatoes from Armstrong Produce are received at market city every day. All cartons of produce with RFID labels that come into the Foodland Store's Beritania & Market City branches will be tracked in this project.
Once the data is collected it can be utilized in a number of reports. A dashboard-based decision support system will display produce movement as well as recent or historical data in as real time as possible. Reporting examples include: start-to-finish harvest level productivity monitoring; harvest end to cooler processing controls—the most critical stage of produce life that has major impacts on shelf life of produce in the stores; cold chain visibility—dwell time in cooler and outside of cooler (with the potential to set up automatic alerts); dwell time on shipping and receiving docks; transportation times between trading partners; and inventory turns to ensure that first-in first-out supply chain practices are achieved.
Future enhancements of this sensor-based system include the ability track temperature and humidity information throughout the cold chain. This will enable growers to monitor the complete harvest to market process and take action to prioritize shipments or remove product from the supply chain based on real world events. The ability to integrate MEMS-based high speed E. coli sensing technology into the overall system will further enhance the viability and value to the participants and provide further food safety to the consumer.
With impending legislation and growing concern over the safety of our food supply chain, there is no doubt that produce growers, processors, shippers, and retailers need to quickly take action to improve visibility and traceability between trading partners. The challenge with implementing a high tech system into a relatively technology averse industry with razor thin margins is challenging. The focus has to be on driving efficiency in the overall supply chain, creating more visibility and actionable business intelligence that allows for real-time decisions to be made at the field, process, or store floor level by employees. At the end of the day, the value proposition is all about adding value to the supply chain through real-time visibility, thus improving food quality and food safety.
Jeff Tazelaar is RFID Product Manager at Lowry Computer Products (www.lowrycomputer.com) and can be reached at jefft@lowrycomputer.com. All photos courtesy Lowry Computer Products.
This material is based upon work supported by the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Award No. 2006-39537-17674 and the Economic Development Alliance of Hawaii. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture nor the Economic Development Alliance of Hawaii.
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