How can traceability be ensured from farmer to plate?

Comsumers are waiting for transparency 👀

The health scandals of recent years, coupled with the new trends favoured by consumers (healthy food, slow food, made in England, etc.), have led to the emergence of food traceability solutions.

Today, the agri-food sector is faced with new issues and challenges that affect the entire production chain. The consumer is becoming more and more demanding. They want to know what they have on their plate, to eat more healthily, more locally and at lower cost. A real challenge for professionals in the sector!

A study on the evolution of the French food model, carried out in 2020 by the Ipsos polling and market research institute, shows that “consumer trends concerning made in France, local products and organic food are confirmed from year to year. 51% of French people say they favour products that are made in France or local products, whereas 45% claim to eat more organic products. 

Today, more than ever, consumers demand guarantees about the origin and quality of products.

Transparency of information is at the heart of food safety challenges. All players involved in the production chain must be aware of the steps and processes to which the product has been subjected in order to offer the consumer the product safety and quality required. In recent years, this visibility and tracking has been made possible through the implementation of solutions which incorporate RFID technology to identify, track or locate each asset.

These solutions are essential for maintaining food safety at all stages of the production chain. If an alert is detected, they are able to guide us to the source of the problem.

RFID Technolgy comes to aid of the meat industry

Adapted solutions

In order to regain consumer confidence, the meat industry, which has been hit hard by numerous food scandals, is not hesitating to invest in RFID traceability solutions.
These tools, made available to professionals in the sector, offer opportunities for optimising production processes, putting in place decision-making tools, reducing costs, and also establishing a relationship of trust with suppliers and consumers.

RFID technology provides value for these companies in many areas:

• Obtaining real-time data on production processes

• Carrying out inventories in real time

• Optimising stock management and reducing losses 

• Accurately tracking reusable assets (packaging, trolleys, containers, etc.)

• Accessing all the information about the product: the farm where the animal was raised, the date of slaughter, the date of putting it up for sale, etc. 

• Being alerted to any food incidents in order to withdraw the product from the production line or shelves

The connected poultry of the Sénécal slaughterhouse 🐔

An example of the use of RFID technology in the poultry sector is the company, Sénécal. The company is a poultry slaughterhouse based in Normandy. They were one of the first to set up a traceability system that enables them to control production, inspection and shipping operations more effectively, all of which take place in their plants. It also enables farmers, distributors and consumers to access information on the background of each bird (place of breeding, birth date of birth, slaughter date).

For the past 4 years, they have been able to track the real-time movements of each batch of poultry in their warehouse. By using RFID technology, Sénécal has been able to collect data automatically and access it via its server. The company is now able to:

• Increase the visibility and traceability of its operations

• Be alerted to anomalies in the production chain and therefore to warn shops or consumers so that they can identify poultry that is unfit for consumption quickly

• Provide consumers and distributors with unprecedented access to poultry information. All they have to do is scan the QR code associated with each product with their Smartphone. 

To achieve this, UBI Solutions provided a complete RFID solution, ranging from the association of RFID tags with the corresponding batches of poultry to the use of different types of hardware such as mobile and fixed readers, combined with middleware (UBI Manager) and UBI Cloud (Cloud-based software, which allows access to the information collected throughout the production chain).

As a result of this investment, Sénécal is able to guarantee the traceability of its poultry, from birth to the plate, and therefore offer products of impeccable quality.

Moving towards sector awareness

In a globalised world where competition is increasing, it is necessary for companies to develop and improve their processes and products constantly, in order to maintain their competitiveness in a market that is ever more saturated with consumer options. Food consumption trends are evolving rapidly and tend towards a desire to eat more locally and responsibly.

The problems faced by the sector players can be solved by implementing solutions tailored to their needs. Specifically, RFID is a flexible technology that can be adapted to the objectives and results sought. It has been adopted by many companies and is now recognised as a reliable, efficient technology that provides full transparency of information.