Food is the fuel that keeps us alive. With global trends, more markets are showing an increased demand for certain foods, leading to an expansion in food distribution. With the rise of this market revenue, it is expected to generate $22.27 billion by 2025.
However, ensuring efficient transport, preservation, and quality while importing and exporting foods presents significant challenges. Add the global concern for food quality and ethical food farming practices, and the demand for market optimisation becomes evident.
So, in the past few years, companies have sought the help of advanced technology for their food traceability initiatives. One such technology is Internet of Things(IoT).
Let’s see how this is transforming the food industry.
Traceability in Food Industry: What Does it Do?
Here is how traceability solutions are transforming the landscape of the food industry:
1. Improve Food Safety
With IoT implementation, manufacturers have significantly reduced the risks of foodborne illness outbreaks. Sensors can monitor every stage of production and shipment.
Additionally, real-time temperature checking allows industries to minutely administer every step of the food predictive and safety process. This ensures that companies always deliver safe for consumption productions to the shelf.
In additions. IoT food traceability technology features allow consumers to track and learn the origins of foods.
2. Accurate Predictions
With IoT, food manufacturers can have an accurate prediction of future conditions. For example, the sensors can alert provideweather alerts. For example, IoT sensors can provide weather alerts, helping manufacturers detect conditions that may promote the growth of disease-causing pathogens or predict potential pest infestations. This enables them to take timely action, reducing the risk of damage.
3. Reduces Waste
As per a UN report, 17% of foods produced go to waste every year. Beyond financial losses, it also affects the environment due to higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
With proper food traceability tech like the Internet of Things (IoT), vendors and shop owners can monitor the condition of food products in real-time. This allows them to identify which products are fresh and safe for consumption and which ones are expiring, enabling prompt disposal of the latter.
Additionally, IoT improves the expenses of inventory with real-time information. Cultivators use food traceability solutions like Cropin’s SmartFarm and SmartRisk to identify low-performing areas and reduce crop loss, while agri-input companies use AcreSquare to market improved seeds and agrochemicals directly to farmers for higher productivity and less waste.
4. Maintain Supply Chain Traceability
IoT plays a key role in helping food manufacturers build customer loyalty by ensuring transparency throughout the supply chain. With IoT tracking and traceability, both manufacturers and consumers can easily monitor food items, despite the complexity added by international and domestic regulations.
This transparency also brings added benefits, such as better inventory management, cost savings, and improved efficiency. Manufacturers can quickly identify and address supply chain inefficiencies to enhance overall performance with traceability in food supply chains.
5. Improving Logistics
IoT technology tracks the food product right from the process of manufacturing to storage to shipping to sales. With RFID transmitters and GPS devices, you can track your product till it reaches the consumers.
Moreover, advanced Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) provides complete visibility across the supply chain. It helps to find relevant information and to track the location of the food item, thus helping stakeholders to evaluate their performance on a global scale.
6. Automatic Compliance Reporting
In addition to quality assurance, IoT enhances food traceability by providing accurate, timely reports to regulators, reducing work hours, and minimizing errors in confidential tasks.
Smart sensors and connected devices streamline monitoring, while a pre-configured HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) checklist ensures continuous data collection on production, manufacturing, transportation, and food storage.
7. Improving Supplier Trust
One of the persisting challenges of the food supply chain is that the products go through so many companies’ processes and hands before they reach the endpoint.
Multiple individuals handle the food products, making it essential for each to maintain stringent food traceability standards to prevent spoilage, contamination, or damage during transit.
IoT sensors can prevent this by providing necessary traceability and sending warning notifications to the associated parties if they fail to maintain quality-control standards.
8. Trace Food from the Farm to the Distribution Facility
Foodborne illnesses are a major problem that causes concern among consumers and food producers. While there is no single solution to this problem, improved visibility allows for better monitoring of every stage of food production.
For instance, if specific temperatures at a manufacturing unit can be monitored, early detection can help bring the situation under control. This would prevent the spread of diseases and bacteria, thus ensuring high food quality.
How to Use IoT and Blockchain in Food Product Traceability Procedure
IoT and blockchain improve food traceability in many ways:
- IoT can improve food quality by regulating temperature, air conditioning, lighting, and watering. For instance, when growing vegetables, you can adopt IoT technology to create favourable conditions, ensuring that foods are ripe and fresh before harvesting and shipping.
- Additionally, IoT can inspect food on the production line to ensure it meets quality standards, preventing non-compliant products from being packaged and shipped to stores. It can also assess size or ripeness, ensuring consistent quality across all items.
- You can also minimise food waste with IoT, especially when you combine it with computer vision. This helps you sort spoiled products out before they are accidentally dispatched.
- With food traceability IoT solutions, you can monitor food safety during transportation. If the foods are in crates or containers that are breakage-prone then sensors can monitor and notify you if there’s any mishap. This lowers costs and wastage.
Enhancing Efficiency with IoT in Cold Chain Management
In the food industry, maintaining the right temperature is crucial, especially for perishable goods. IoT-powered sensors allow real-time monitoring of cold chain logistics.
This ensures that you can maintain optimal temperatures throughout transportation and storage. It minimises spoilage, ensures product freshness, and reduces waste, ultimately safeguarding both consumer health and company profitability.
This is how IoT-empowered traceability systems in food industry are ensuring that food quality is in check.
FAQs: Revolutionizing Food Traceability with IoT in Logistics and Transport
What are some food traceability examples?
You can track produce from farm to table and monitor seafood origin and sustainability. Additionally, you can also ensure the proper handling of dairy products by using IoT sensors to track real-time conditions during transportation.
What is the use of IoT in transportation and logistics?
IoT devices provide data that is essential in optimising delivery routes, avoiding traffic delays and also reducing travel distances. Such optimisation leads to lower fuel consumption and faster delivery times. Moreover, as IoT monitors vehicle health, it offers predictive maintenance.
How does IoT help in inventory management for food retailers?
IoT provides real-time data on stock levels, tracking product freshness, automating reordering processes and reducing waste through accurate monitoring.
Conclusion
Food retail is very competitive. To stay ahead in the game, companies must ensure high-quality food products and accountability. Customers have shown to support brands that are vocally traceable in their food supply chain.
Therefore, companies need reliable food traceability software to ensure their customers receive the best of the best. With state-of-the-art software, along with IoT and blockchain solutions, companies can minimise spoilage, ensure product freshness, and reduce waste.To learn more about the traceability solutions for safeguarding both consumer health and company profitability, contact Qodenext.
