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The RFID Industry Misses the Boat on Food Safety
3 CommentsLast week, someone from a technology company sent me an e-mail containing a link to President Barack Obama's weekly radio address on Mar. 14, in which the president made several important announcements: the appointments of Dr. Margaret Hamburg as commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Dr. Joshua Sharfstein as the principal deputy commissioner, as well as the creation of a Food Safety Working Group (see WEEKLY ADDRESS: President Barack Obama Announces Key FDA Appointments and Tougher Food Safety Measures). The working group is charged with upgrading and enforcing food safety laws.
The e-mail noted, "He does not mention 'mass serialization,' 'serialization,' 'serial,' 'visibility,' 'traceability' or even 'recall!'" It then went on to ask, "Is the automatic identification community missing out on one of the biggest revenue opportunities in years, by not forcing these words into the public debate? Is the community going to stand by and let the president and other politicians paint the picture that food-safety problems will disappear if we merely add more inspectors?"
Yes, it apparently is. Just as the auto-ID industry missed out on the stimulus money to upgrade infrastructure. I'm as frustrated about this as my correspondent is.
I recently wrote to New York Times columnist Tom Friedman to try to get him interested in a technology that could not only make the food supply safer, but also dramatically reduce waste in the global food chain. According to the United Nations' World Food Programme, half of all food is never consumed. We could feed all of the hungry on Earth if we could just significantly reduce waste.
IBM, at least, is trying to influence the debate. Check out this food safety video at Forbes.com, featuring my buddy Paul Chang. Why aren't more smart people—and companies with track-and-trace solutions—getting the word out regarding how to secure the food supply chain?
Mark Roberti is the founder and editor of RFID Journal. If you would like to comment on this article, click on the link below. Toread more of Mark's opinions, visit the RFID Journal Blog or click here.
The e-mail noted, "He does not mention 'mass serialization,' 'serialization,' 'serial,' 'visibility,' 'traceability' or even 'recall!'" It then went on to ask, "Is the automatic identification community missing out on one of the biggest revenue opportunities in years, by not forcing these words into the public debate? Is the community going to stand by and let the president and other politicians paint the picture that food-safety problems will disappear if we merely add more inspectors?"
Yes, it apparently is. Just as the auto-ID industry missed out on the stimulus money to upgrade infrastructure. I'm as frustrated about this as my correspondent is.
IBM, at least, is trying to influence the debate. Check out this food safety video at Forbes.com, featuring my buddy Paul Chang. Why aren't more smart people—and companies with track-and-trace solutions—getting the word out regarding how to secure the food supply chain?
Mark Roberti is the founder and editor of RFID Journal. If you would like to comment on this article, click on the link below. To
READERS' COMMENTS
We are working on this
Mark: OSU Food Innovation Center are working with other universities in the west coast and food industries from farm to retailers to develop a RFID enabled tracking and tracing system to improve food safety and traceability, quality and productivity. This is a multi-state, trans-disciplinary research effort to address regional tracking and tracing problems facing the growers, processors, and retailers. Dr. Ling Founding director RFID Food Application Lab
Posted By: Qingyue Ling 3/25/09 at 12:40 PM
But we are not promoting it!
Dear Qingyue Ling: I know there are some great projects going on at universities and some vendors are working with end users on traceability projects. But we, as an industry, are not promoting what RFID (and serialized bar codes) can do to help solve this problem. We need to make the president and the Congress and leaders around the world aware that technology can help reduce this problem. Mark
Posted By: Mark Roberti 3/26/09 at 6:26 AM
Security Systems Business Development
Obama tries not discuss this - it pisses off - AFL-CIO and Teamsters - UPS's Union went so far to put it into their contract that GPS Data could not be used in Driver evaluation only as a tool in routing which is pure fantasy. (It's like judging beauty contest and judges are required to pretend that the beauties are wearing bags over their heads) - It's a glaring omission on the Obama Administration that say's - GPS and RFID Technology are going to be used but lets not talk about it right now.
Posted By: Michael Leeney-Nieto 3/26/09 at 3:44 PM