RFID helps deliver the freshest products to your table

Nuno Carvalho has invited a couple of friends for a barbecue in the garden of his home near Lisbon. He heads for the local butcher to pick up the freshest cut of beef. How can he be sure that the meat was processed and transported properly? That's a job for RFID.

Nuno’s butcher and his suppliers use RFID to monitor the conditions under which food is shipped. European law stipulates that perishable food must be transported at certain temperatures in what it calls the “cold chain.” If that chain is broken, companies risk harming their businesses and they may be fined by authorities.

Documenting the cold chain

The cold chain is so important that the European Union is supporting a project to test the use of RFID along its complete length. The four-year project, with 23 partners in 13 countries, is developing processes for measuring and recording storage and shipping conditions precisely.

Here’s how most businesses will monitor the cold chain: companies attach RFID tags with temperature sensors to bins or crates of meat. These tags are read at key transfer points as the meat is moved from the processing plant to the store’s distribution centre and on to the retail shopfloor. The sensor on the tag records a temperature reading at a pre-set interval and this information is transmitted to the computer system when the unique identification numbers on the tags are read. The computer system reviews the temperature data and alerts users if temperatures are not within an acceptable range.