In an effort to improve the traceability of seafood exported to retailers in the United States, Europe and Japan, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) is working with IBM and other technology vendors to provide advanced technologies, including radio frequency identification, to the association’s member seafood producers. Such technologies would enable the creation of detailed records regarding the origin and movement of seafood products from farm to point of sale to consumers.
Paul Chang, IBM’s worldwide lead of business strategy for emerging technologies, says the first deployments are set to begin in late June or early July 2009—though VASEP has yet to choose the seafood producers that will participate in the pilots. (VASEP did not respond to RFID Journal‘s requests for additional information.) To determine which producers will participate, the association is focusing on those that ship seafood to large U.S. and European retailers with RFID systems already in place.
The technology that suppliers use to begin tracking seafood at its source could be linear bar codes, 2-D bar codes or RFID—such a decision will not be made, Chang says, until the producers have been selected and the pilots have begun. However, he notes, IBM is encouraging the use of RFID technology because it offers advantages over bar codes, from which data is collected using a line-of-sight bar-code scanner. RFID tags, on the other hand, can be read without a direct line of sight, because the information is carried on a radio frequency signal.
Regardless of which auto-ID technology the producers employ, all data used to track and trace the food from the point of collection to the retail shelf will be stored on software complying with EPCglobal‘s Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) standard. This standard was developed to allow various supply chain partners to capture and share information utilizing common data formats and protocols (see EPCglobal Ratifies EPCIS Standard). IBM uses the standard for its InfoSphere Traceability Server software, which serves as a data repository, enabling trading partners to track products as they move through the global supply chain.
FXA Group, a Bangkok-based provider of food-traceability software known as OpsSmart, will work directly with the producers to begin tracking products by helping them obtain serialized Global Trade Identification Numbers (GTINs). IBM will then collect these numbers—along with data from the FXA software indicating where the seafood was acquired, as well as when and by whom—then store this information on the InfoSphere Traceability Server software. In this way, shippers and retailers involved in the project will be able to document the supply chain, adding new data pertaining to each seafood shipment they receive, process or forward, until the products are placed on store shelves.
FXA Group already works with two Thai shrimp exporters that began using low-frequency (LF) RFID passive tags, operating at 134.2 kHz and complying with the ISO 11785 standard, in order to trace shrimp exports back to their point of origin. The system better allows the exporters to react quickly, to track contaminated shrimp in the event of a food recall, as well as to make their food-processing steps more efficient (see Thai Shrimp Exporters Use RFID for Automation, Traceability).
Until food can be closely tracked throughout the supply chain, its safety can not be verified, nor can a contamination source be quickly pinpointed. Earlier this year, salmonella poisoning originating in a peanut processing plant killed nine people and sickened 27,000 in the United States. In October 2007, the same type of bacteria sickened 15,000 U.S. residents after they ate pot pies produced by ConAgra and other food companies.
Seafood sold in the United States must already carry a country-of-origin label, but the U.S. Congress is currently considering a number of bills, promoted by the American Public Health Association and other public health groups, aimed at improving food safety (see Health Advocates Demand FDA Improvements. While tracking seafood shipments with passive RFID tags or bar codes would not enable producers to verify the temperature conditions in which those products are kept, Chang concedes that it would be an important first step toward making the movements of seafood exports through the supply chain more transparent. Eventually, he says, these producers might use battery-assisted or active RFID tags with integrated temperature sensors in order to both track the location of shipments, and ensure that they remain properly refrigerated during storage and transport.
Chang says that IBM’s global presence—the company operates in 170 countries—bolsters its position in offering traceability solutions around the world, both for food products and for pharmaceuticals (see IBM Adds E-Pedigree Features to WebSphere RFIDIC). Drugmakers also face increasing regulations to improve product tracking and safety.
“We’re hoping our work with VASEP will be a model for other countries” looking to improve food traceability, Chang states. “To solve a problem as global as food safety, it’ll require collaboration between government, industry groups and technology providers such as IBM.”