Eskil Forås

Challenges regarding implementation of electronic chain traceability

Purpose – Increased focus on safe and healthy food has resulted in the need for implementing electronic chain traceability. This poses challenges both regarding technical solutions and business processes. The purpose of this paper is to report from a research project where implementation in a value chain for farmed salmon is used to investigate these challenges.Design/methodology/approach – The first step in the project was to establish a complete value chain for farmed salmon as a basis for further study. The second step was to use theoretical concepts of internal traceability and chain traceability as a basis for analyzing the status of each company regarding readiness to implement electronic chain traceability. The third step was to compare the final level of implementation in each company with the level of implementation readiness at the start of the project.Findings – Implementation of electronic chain traceability may involve changes both in work processes and software systems. This study shows that...

EPCIS based online temperature monitoring and traceability in a cold meat chain

We present an EPCIS based real-time and online temperature monitoring system.This system can lead to reduction of food loss during transportation.The system provides better control over the supply chain and food quality. Temperature monitoring is the most critical requirement in the management of a cold products chain. A real-time temperature monitoring system can be useful in reducing losses in a cold food chain that occur due to product deterioration caused by fluctuating temperatures. A pilot test was conducted to evaluate the functionality of an EPCIS based online system for time-temperature monitoring and documenting traceability in a cold meat chain. The test was performed during transportation of chilled lamb products. The RFID based temperature sensors were used to record temperature of the product and ambient temperature inside the container at 10min time intervals during transportation between processing plant and a distribution terminal 800km away. The sensors communicated with the main unit installed in the truck and transmitted the data to an EPCIS based system which was accessible through a web interface. The temperature information was recorded as EPCIS events. The results of the application of EPCIS for online temperature monitoring are presented in this paper. Implementing a systematic EPCIS based cold chain monitoring tool can optimize the performance of the whole food supply chain by reducing losses caused by quality deterioration due to temperature variations.

Information models leveraging identification of returnable transport items

Purpose – New technology for equipping returnable transport items (RTI) with unique identification (e.g. RFID) give food industry companies new opportunities for improving business processes. The efficient exploitation poses new demands on the information technology systems in general and on the underlying information models in particular. This paper aims to introduce a generic information model where functionality for handling RTIs with unique identification is included.Design/methodology/approach – Functional requirements are analysed based on process descriptions and use case examples from a real production environment. Detailed information modelling was then done in several iterations using entity‐relationship diagrams. Validation of the model was done based on use cases typical for the food industry.Findings – The model described is developed within the broad scope of looking at opportunities for using wireless technology to improve business processes and traceability. This includes RFID, RF based se...

Evaluation of a fast method based on the presence of two restriction sites in the mitochondrial ND5 (mt ND5) gene for the identification of scomber species

The purpose of this work was to evaluate the suitability of a method based on the presence of two restriction sites (for Hae III and Hindf I) in the mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase subunit 5 (mt ND5) gene to identify Scomber species. The evaluation was performed on 144 reference and market samples by sequencing of the entire 505-bp fragment of the mt ND5 gene and of a 464-bp fragment of the Kocher fragment of the cytochrome b gene (mt Cytb). Sequence analysis of any of the two fragments allows the identification of each of the four Scomber species, but S. japonicus and S. colias had the same restriction sites at the ND5 amplicon and would not have been differentiated by this analysis. Similarly, loss of the Hae III site in some S. scombrus individuals would have misidentified them as not being Scomber. All the market products were correctly labeled except one acquired in Spain labeled as originating in the Atlantic and containing S. japonicus.