Supermarket Perimeter - March 2020 - 60

Food safety: Digital monitoring

Two more ways in
which IoT is changing
the food industry:
1. Increased Operational Efficiency
With 90% of companies investing in big data solutions,
keeping up with industry is key. Utilizing digital analysis platform technology can help ensure sustainable,
proﬁtable growth for the entire supply chain. This kind of
technology can provide insight into equipment performance, predictive maintenance needs and real-time
inventory tracking.
With global food loss at a staggering 1.3 billion tons per
year, the food supply chain is beginning to utilize sensor
technology to track temperature readings throughout the
supply chain, increasing food safety and reducing retail
shrink. Similar IoT technology can also be used to store
product data and automate food quality reporting.
2. Transparency Along the Supply Chain
Consumers expect transparency from the companies
that they buy from - especially in the food industry. Implementing transparency and traceability along the
global supply chain will help food companies win business
by driving consumer trust and loyalty. Although domestic
and international regulations can increase the complexity of the global food supply chain, IoT technologies can
make it easy for both consumers and companies to track
products.
Transparency also has added beneﬁts that can create
advantages for companies such as cost savings, improved
inventory management and faster lead times. IoT is
powerful and can connect the supply chain to real-time
product data, creating endless opportunities for the food
industry. Companies can reap the beneﬁts by ﬁnding and
solving inefficiencies in the supply chain, meeting and
exceeding food safety regulations, and providing transparency to consumers.
Source: Sealed Air

"Smart" packaging and consumer loyalty
Charlotte, North Carolina-based Sealed Air offers smart packaging to
help customers provide proof of authenticity and enhance consumer
brand loyalty, says Patty Britton, the company's vice president of digital
business development.
"Through the use of digital print technologies, Sealed Air makes packaging IoT ready with a unique code, which is readable by custom and
native mobile apps," she says. "Referencing its NASDAQ symbol, SEE,
Sealed Air created a new brand mark incorporating those three letters
that visually prompt consumers to 'see inside' a package to learn more."
60 - MARCH 2020

Consumers can scan the brand mark on the package and receive
information about the product's history, even down to the farm where
the meat was sourced, Britton says.
The technology may also give them the capability to do things like
obtain recipes and promotional offers or engage with other kinds of
brand experiences.
"We see a future where smart packaging can help automate stocking
and food expiration management, ultimately reducing the amount of
food wasted each year," Britton says.
In addition to Sealed Air's smart packaging offerings, the company
uses IoT machine data on its packaging equipment to check for proper
sealing on customers' products.
A proper seal, Britton says, ensures package integrity through storage
and distribution to the retail location. This in turn ensures product
protection from external contaminants.
"IoT in packaging enables true farm-to-fork traceability, which helps
consumers ﬁnd authentic products. Using a smart phone to scan a
package, the consumer can get expanded ingredient lists and proof of
product claims such as organic, natural, farm raised, and hormone free."
In some cases, she adds, these claims are consumer preferences. In
others, a wrong ingredient could create an allergic reaction in those
with food allergies.
"When each package has its own identity - unique, serial ID - the
data can be tied to temperature-sensing information which gives
additional assurance to consumers that the food was safely handled
throughout the supply chain."

Prices fall on cutting-edge technology
Many more options exist to monitor temperature and cargo environment and cargo condition than ever before, and prices are coming
down to make carton or pallet-level tracking a viable option for some
high-value or high-risk foods, such as fresh seafood, exotic produce and
fresh meats, Truelsch says.
"While trailer or container-level temperature and tamper-detection predominate in food supply chain tracking data today, more data
and package granularity is emerging across ever more transportation
modes and handling nodes to capture a more detailed picture of the
journey our food took to reach the local grocery store," she says.
What helps separate Infor from its competitors, Truelsch says, is
that the company's Infor Nexus solutions provide more visibility and
monitoring options for globally sourced food stuffs than other solutions
typically designed for domestic carrier and transport monitoring.
Some of Infor's customers have been asked to take part in Walmart's
blockchain initiative with IBM around food safety, Truelsch says. But
it's apparent, she adds, that broad supply chain partner participation in
food safety tracking and assurance is much more critical than underlying data management technologies.
"Network-building in critical food supply chains that extends across
national borders and all transportation modes is the big challenge
in food safety," she says. "This means getting all participants - from
farmer, wholesaler, packager, ocean and air carrier to 3PL to warehouse
to private or dedicated delivery ﬂeet - to connect to a single network
that can capture an unbroken chain of custody record for food, from
origin to consumption."

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Supermarket Perimeter - March 2020

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