RFID Ensures Traceability

Laboratory analysis is a basic requirement if water, soil, and produce samples are to be analyzed for the multitude of chemical and biological contaminants that can and do impact food supplies.

Detection or measurement is one thing, but creating an independent device capable of measuring and forwarding its data in a real-time manner to a centralized system designed to deliver alerts is a completely different animal.

Integrated Food Safety Certification

Illustrates a combination of the concepts above into an integrated food safety certification system. In order for certification to occur, three criteria must be met:

• risk assessment;
• traceability; and
• certification.

While the figure focuses on the farm as a starting point, risk assessment criteria must be established for any point in the supply chain. This includes farms, distribution centers, wholesalers, transporters, and retail or restaurant outlets. Regardless of the size of the operation, food safety risks do not go away. The farm, for example, commonly puts some type of fertilizer on the soil and occasionally on the produce. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides used by most farms or the organic composts used by organic farmers need to be tested, as does the water on those farms. Tests should occur more than on an annual basis and should be accompanied by a stop order if test results are not up to specifications.

In today’s world, when water is tested and found to have unacceptable levels of E. coli, there is no obligation to stop using that water. If there was a higher level of chemical and biological surveillance, however, a great number of food production and handling operations would be put out of business for their apparent lack of regard for human health.

Puts risk assessment, traceability, and an overhauled food safety inspection system into each other’s contexts. Given a farm—designated USHI9Y4—with unavoidable chemical and biological contaminants in its soil and water and on its produce, samples are taken for the laboratory analysis part of the risk assessment. A focused primary risk assessment walk-through audit is conducted on the farm at the same time the water, soil, and produce samples are collected. The walk-through audit evaluates risks while teaching the farmer about the type and extent of risks the farm exhibits.

Once the primary risk assessment is complete and the traceability system is in place and operational, inspection staff are called in to provide a complete food safety certification study. It should be noted that passing the inspection for food safety certification is not sufficient for food safety certification in this system. The business entity must pass risk assessment, be a firm member of a traceability system, and pass a complete food safety audit.

Meanwhile, as the produce is shipped to distributors, stores, and restaurants, the operating traceability system is tagging and tracking cases and pallets. More importantly, temperature and biological sensors are measuring and communicating the results of their measurements to the RFID system.

Furthermore, all data related to the certification status must be housed in a hosted computer system that makes non-proprietary data available to corporate buyers and the general public. Public access to the system is provided using the USHI (Hawaii) business identifier associated with shipped produce. Note that the USHI not only meets country of origin labeling (COOL/U.S.) and traceability requirements; it also traces the produce back to the state of origin (Hawaii) and the specific farm of origin (USHI9Y4). Any person anywhere in the world can enter that number into the hosting system and quickly locate the specific farm from which the produce came. More importantly, the person entering the data can review that farm’s food safety certification status.