The Intelleflex Perishable Produce solution provides distributors and retail grocers with the ability to track and monitor the quality and temperature of fresh-cut produce from the grower to the shelf. Intelleflex XC3 TechnologyTM provides on-demand visibility of the produce’s location and condition throughout the cold chain – without unpacking the pallet or unloading the trailer – to ensure quality, maximize shelf life and increase customer satisfaction and brand value.
The Need for On-Demand Visibility
For consumers, the quality and consistency of fresh produce is the number one factor in selecting their primary grocery store. Ensuring high quality produce with a long shelf life, however, is a function of proper temperature management throughout the cold chain. Without accurate information, distribution centers and grocers are forced to accept fresh produce shipments with little knowledge of its handling conditions. Food packing containers and their contents can be mishandled, left on loading docks, stuck on trucks, misrouted and subjected to extreme temperatures that negatively impact quality, shelf life and customer satisfaction. Legacy tracking and temperature monitoring technologies limit in-transit visibility and effective decision making.
The Challenge
Fresh fruit and vegetables are a leading source of brand differentiation, revenues and profits for retail grocers. However, due to improper handling, an estimated $35 billion of perishable foods go to waste each year. Half of this shrink is due to temperature variations experienced during shipping from the producer to the retail grocer where even a 4° F variance in storage temperature can reduce shelf life by 30% and significantly impact quality and profits.
To prove quality, the storage temperature of perishable produce needs to be consistently and accurately monitored in-transit at the carton or pallet level at every point in the cold chain. Simply monitoring the ambient temperature inside a trailer or warehouse is inadequate as temperatures can fluctuate significantly depending on the storage location. Even if the produce arrives at its destination at the proper temperature, it’s difficult to determine if the produce has been consistently stored properly.
Distributors and retail grocers need to be able to quickly and easily assess the quality and value of the produce when it is delivered so they can determine how to best direct the product going forward or reject the shipment entirely. With limited cold chain visibility and lack of temperature data, grocers often must accept shipments with little knowledge of the handling conditions that directly impact the products’ quality and value.
It’s also important to track produce in the event of a recall, making it essential to trace batch numbers and accurately link product back to distribution centers and producers. Poor and inconsistent quality produce on the store shelf leads to dissatisfied customers who take their business elsewhere.
The Solution
Intelleflex delivers the ability to track and monitor produce temperature throughout the cold chain from producer to retailer. We combine the power of our Extended Capability RFID™ system with your existing software applications to provide an integrated solution for on-demand visibility that improves real-time decision making, helps ensure product quality and enhances store loyalty.
With Intelleflex, cost-effective and re-usable temperature monitoring tags are placed inside each pallet or carton at harvest in the field. Intelleflex tags feature on-board memory for storing a complete temperature history of the perishables, from the field to the store, directly from the tag. Intelleflex tags can be easily read in-transit at any point in the cold chain without unpacking the container – enabling real-time decision making and providing you with the ability to accept or reject specific pallets and cartons at the distribution center and at the store.
Since shelf life is a function of temperature control, your distribution centers can implement a FEFO (First Expiry, First Out) inventory system utilizing shelf life prediction. This provides you the ability to quickly reroute products with a shorter shelf life to nearby locations and products with a longer shelf life to more distant locations – ensuring better product quality and higher revenues.
Intelleflex solutions are designed for the most demanding environments. Tags can be automatically and reliably read while inside packaging, and are built to withstand extreme temperatures, moisture and dust conditions, with IP67-rated tag enclosures.
Our solutions are designed to integrate with your existing applications and networks, or be used standalone without the need for complex back end systems. Flexible application options make it simple to use the system.
Source: Intelleflex