RFID Ensures Traceability

The business owner benefits because the business then becomes a member of a formal food safety certification system that can be used to provide substantial marketing power. Let’s face it, top-down pressures from wholesalers, retail chains, and restaurant chains are actively enforcing food safety compliance. There is no escape, even for the small farmer. Compliance is market driven due to increasing public awareness of the state of the industry with regard to E. coli, Salmonella, and other food safety failures.

A farm with good risk assessment data is part of a solid traceability system, tracks the temperatures of its shipped produce, and has passed a full food safety certification audit, putting it in a good position to create demand. Buyers aren’t looking for farms that continually make excuses about why they cannot achieve compliance. Such farms are simply placed on the “does not qualify” list.

Modern quality system strategies are slowly but surely making their way into the food supply chain. While a great deal of work remains to be done with regard to costs and technological capabilities surrounding RFID and sensor technology, risk assessment, traceability, and food safety certification are clearly being pressed by the industry and will most likely soon be required by legislation. The food supply chain member that finds itself kept out of the marketplace because it cannot or will not comply with food safety requirements will not exist in the future.

Dr. Ryan is administrator of the Quality Assurance Division of the Hawaii State Department of Agriculture. Reach him at [email protected] or (808) 832-0705