Applications of EPICS in food supply chain management

I'm presenting at the workshop Applications of EPICS in food supply chain management in Oslo 16. November. This workshop is based around the work done by SINTEF Fisheries and Aquaculture, Matis and TraceTracker (where I work) in the eTrace project. I hope to see you there if you are interested in the use of EPCIS for applications like traceability, sustainability, logistics optimization and supply chain management!

TraceTracker Data Uploader and the 5 step model

Earlier this week I had a customer in central Europe wanting a canned version of a product demonstration I just gave them. Well, the raw material proved too large to be distributed in email, so I ran it through Windows Movie Maker before uploading it to my YouTube account. I guess I should have used the TraceTracker account, but I forgot. Anyway, according to rumors it was a great success.

If you need a manual way to upload traceability information to the Global Traceability Network you can take a look yourself here.

My favorite meeting facilities

Occasionally I experience things that I really like. This time I have discovered my favorite facility for meetings. A bit impractical as it lies in Germany while my work is based out of Norway. However, I am willing to travel when invited!

The building pictured on the right lies in Ludwigshafen in Germany. It is referred to as Gesellschaftshaus, which means something like "party house", but these days it is also used to house business meetings. Not only are the meeting rooms agreeable and well furnished. There is also a restaurant there where one can have both lunch and dinner served. And the food is very good.

Last week I enjoyed a meeting there for the second time. Travelling down on the 24. August was a bit difficult, as a storm closed down Frankfurt airport before I was scheduled to land and my train to Mannheim was delayed.
But the meeting, lunch and dinner the next day at the Gesellschaftshaus was a pleasure!

Earlier visits to Ludwigshafen have been alluded to here and here. At least!

Agro based clusters and traceability

With the recent ecoli incidents in Europe I suspect it may get even worse for farmers in developing countries to sell their products. German authorities are now certain that it was locally grown products that were to blame, but the average consumer may have become more conscious that it matters where foodstuff comes from.

So what should growers of fruit and vegetables in developing countries do to secure market access?

Last weekend I read a FAO report on Agro based clusters in developing countries. I have become involved in the design of such a cluster, with focus on using electronic traceability for creating product documentation. This solution is intended to support the cluster in creating market advantages through the use of modern export and sales support technologies. But can this also be used to make the end consumer trust the products?

A pilot in the eTrace project had success with using traceability information in the dialog with consumers at the point of sale. According to the fish monger “Instead of selling just a few kilos a day, I sold more than 150 kilos over 4 days. This is a very significant increase for us.”

Can similar effects be expected if flowers, fruit and vegetables from developing countries are equipped with traceability information? And how should it be done, by printing the information on the packaging or by providing links to online solutions like this (in Norwegian)?

Present in the pixels

The eTrace project is over. Just before Easter the project had its final meeting in Gothenburg. The plan was that I should be there presenting How can EPCIS provide faster and more efficient traceability operations and increase the ability to perform precise and reliable recalls in case of food scares. But alas, I had to attend a meeting in the US instead.


But to my surprise I was present in the pixels, as one of the presentations included a picture from a meal we had during that particular pilot in Simrishamn in May last year. And it is me in the picture, using my phone. And the meal was excellent!

Lunch in the land of additives

This was my lunch yesterday.

Yet again I was consulting in Ludwigshafen. With its main industry there I guess it may be referred to as the land of additives, although the range of chemicals produced covers much more than just additives to food and feed.

Looking at the food on my tray I have the feeling that additives were not playing a big role. In fact, I think I should be able to copy the dishes myself from natural sources and spices. The meal was very tasty, and it refuelled us so that we could continue our work efficiently.

Tagging in Iceland

A couple of weeks ago I was in Iceland to run another RFID project. The contect was the same as this project. This time we had more tools available, like handheld RFID scanners with embedded software to compose XML for upload to the project EPCIS.


In the previous project we attached the RFID tags directly to the fish boxes, but this time we tried a different approach. The fish was stored on ice in big tubs. These were stored in a cold store, and they were wet. So instead of trying to get a piece of surface that we could fasten the tag, we attached them to handles in the corners of the tubs with the help of some extra paper tags. So here you see me, dressed up according to the rules of the processing company, giving a tub of Sebastes marinus identity.


These paper tags proved to be very convenient. As the project progressed we could take them off, make notes and so on. Of course, had the use of RFID been integrated into the production, then everything would be automatic. But this was a pilot in a type of chain that is not among the first movers. So we had to do a lot of manual operations, and then we could make notes on the tags that helped us fill in the holes in the traceability model later on.

To cover the different roles of traced items we employed both SGTIN and GRAI type RFID tags. The finished products, that were airlifted to markets in mainland Europe, were equipped with SGTINs, while the tubs with fish and similar vessels that were being used in the productions, were equipped with GRAIs. This way the proper XML can decommission the tags, so that they can be reused later without being related traceability-wise to earlier uses.

How fresh is the fish? - revisited

I gave a talk called How fresh is the fish? once. It didn't actually answer the question.

However, things have moved forward. Of course, an experienced fish buyer can judge the freshness of a fish by looking at it, feeling it and so on. But there are other sources of relevant information. For example, the Matis research institute in Iceland has made findings of "undesirable substances" available online. Another, similar resource is Mareano, run by the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research.

Of course, fish moves around in the oceans, but if the fish we buy carried information about where it was caught, we consumers could look up what to expect in terms of harmful chemicals etc. But that wouldn't keep industry from polluting, would it?

Red fish - red fish - red fish

In 2010 Greenpeace added Rose fish to its seafood red list because it is being sourced from unsustainable fisheries. Well, in the middle of August I did some project work in Iceland where they obviously process this fish. I think the ones on this picture were sorted away from production together with some friends.

But I don't think I have ever seen so much fish at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised if the Icelanders could keep us all with fish if they were given the chance, provided of course it was sustainable!

Anyway, given that my hosts keep the project going I expect other Rose fish to end up as EPCs in a EPCIS system before the end of the year.

By the way, in Norwegian Rose fish is called uer.

The train in Spain stays mainly in the plain ...

Some weeks ago I took at trip to Spain to look at tomato harvesting and ketchup production. To get from Barcelona to Zaragoza I and my colleague travelled with the AVE, Spain's high speed train service.

It was breathtaking - home in Norway we have one of the crappiest train services I have ever encountered. And in Spain I travelled at 300km/t and more (I saw 301!).

I sincerely hope that Norway can start investing the profits from the North Sea in infrastructure. That may help the nation when we go back to being a poor country again, when we again depend on wood and fisheries. Nobody uses paper any more, and for how long will it still be advisable to eat fish? But with decent roads, rails, education and so on - who knows, maybe we have a future?

What happened in Simrishamn?

A couple of entries ago I reported the knitted cover on lampposts in Simrishamn, Sweden.

So why was I there? Well, this was one of multiple visits to this fascinating town were I was participating in a EPCIS based traceability project on behalf of TraceTracker. That link just there covers the project highlights (and I'm the one facing the camera in the picture).

Another memorable thing was that I for the first time since I was in my teens had the pleasure of tasting
bøkling. Now I keep asking for it in Norwegian shops, but so far I have not succeeded.

Luggage blindness

A couple of days ago I landed at the international airport in Nairobi, Kenya. Once again I was on tour to help a local company with traceability solutions.

As I was waiting for my luggage to appear on the baggage carousel, I started to doubt whether I was looking for the right thing. Maybe I was using some other suitcase than what I was looking for, and that it was on the carousel all the time. Or maybe even my suitcase had gone missing.

Luckily, before I could declare that I suffered from luggage blindness my suitcase appeared, and all was well. But I coined a new term, didn't I?

Cowberry chocolate cake

My Captain Cowberry alias may need substantiation. Cowberry is an alias for Vaccinium vitis-idaea, and many know that better as Lingonberry. Through my work with traceability I have given a number of courses in implementing traceability solutions, and a key example in those courses have been an example traceability modell for cowberry jam.

But now to today's subject - cowberry chocolate cake. You can either use your favourite recipe for French chocolate cake and sprinkle
cowberry over it, or use the following:

Ingredients:

• 0.3 liters of icing sugar
• 200 grams of chocolate (70%+ cocoa)
• 200 grams of butter
• 3 eggs
• 0.2 liters of flour
• 0.2 liters of cowberry
Recipe:
• heat oven to 175 degrees C,
• melt the butter, sugar and chocolate over moderate heat
• beat the eggs into the chocolate mixture one at a time
• stir in the flour
• pour the batter into a 20-24 cm springform cake tin
• sprinkle the cake with cowberry
• bake the cake for 25 minutes (add 5 minutes it the berries are frozen)
Serve with whipped, sour or ice cream.

Dual RFID tags in Pack & Sea's fish crates

Recently I participated on a project that sought to create traceability on fish caught in Swedish waters. While we affixed GRAI RFID tags to fish crates on the go (this was a pilot), we also observed some of the characteristic green fish crates from Pack & Sea. So we decided to try if our standard RFID readers could read these as well.

Reading those fish crates turned out to be no problem. But to our surprise each of the crates from Pack & Sea contained two RFID tags, with different identities. So if we had a stack of, say, 10 crates and one was from Pack & Sea, then we would read 11 identifiers.

This seemed very impractical in harbors where fish crates from a number of sources may be used on the same vessel. So to avoid having different routines for the presence of such crates, we decided to avoid them.

Actually, I do not think it is according to EPCglobal's guidelines to have use two identities in this way.