Food Stability, Sensors and Value Chains: Issues and Challenges in Meat Traceability

Luke Mirowski, Leorey Marquez, Mark Tamplin, Paul Turner 2014 International Workshop on Food Supply Chains4-7 November 2014, San Francisco, USA

Traceability Framework Objectives

• Describe key issues and challenges to be addressed in the research investigation into how best to collect, collate and re-purpose traceability data on beef livestock and meat.

• Develop and implement a system along an entire premium beef supply chain including post-slaughter as meat is disaggregated, packaged and transformed into multiple individual consumer products.

• Understand how best to integrate food stability science, sensors and traceability to optimise value and profitability with a premium beef supply chain.

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Barriers to true integration in supply chains

• Only limited integration along entire supply chains and current inter-organisational structures and systems tend to be restricted to one-up/one-down interactions for regulatory compliance in relation to meat safety and quality.

• heavily focused on specific production processes, • limited to immediate supply chain partners to primarily support

compliance with changing food safety and quality standards and regulations

• lack of clarity around core concepts between players• disparities in the impact and perceived importance of key

drivers amongst different stakeholders• supply chain fragmentation and the predominance of resource-

poor SMEs• sheer complexity of the tasks

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Pathways to Market (P2M)

•$10m international research collaboration

•PTM is 5 year multi-disciplinary project that involves:

Targeted investigation into how intelligent use of information can contribute to enhancing industry competitiveness, environmental sustainability and innovation in premium food value chains:

For Producers: inputs and material flows pertaining to product provenance and the sustainability of environmental inputs/assets used

For Consumers: consumer preferences and buying patterns resulting from availability, form and delivery channel of real-time provenance and food quality information

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P2M Research Streams

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P2M Work Programs

WP2 : Develop insights on production and consumption generated through sensors, traceability systems and advanced modelling techniques implemented in smart applications to support value generation and sustainability in food value chains.

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• Project response is to: develop an integrated sensor and traceability system reference model for the entire chain enabling individual orgnisations to make informed decisions about selection and adoption of technologies, systems and services that optimise value and resilience along the chain.

• Traceability in this project is approached as fundamentally being about the collection, storage, management and dissemination of data and information associated with material (or virtual) products, production and consumption processes that allow for their identification, history and location to be tracked and traced in real-time or post-mortem.

Traceability Framework

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Framework Approach

•The approach involved developing an extended beef supply chain model.

•This model conceptualises all key technical, logistical and informational elements (as well as how these inter-relate both within and between supply chain partners) as inputs necessary to optimise the visibility of material and information flows in the beef value chain. •This is aligned to development of a generic domain reference model for the broader project on perishable food supply chains. •This reference model work is closely aligned to similar European efforts to improve the integration and visibility of information flows in perishable food chains amongst SMEs (e.g. eFoodChain, Ferreira et al, 2012). http://www.efoodchain.eu/•Key industry partner to perform case study

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Alignment with European Efforts

eFoodChain Reference Framework • a set of principles, data exchange models and rules for interoperability

among business processes allowing seamless, paperless information and data flows underpinning B2B transactions along food supply chains.

• The overall sectoral collaborative reference framework to promote the participation of SMEs and interoperability at cross-border level in the agri-food supply chain all over Europe.

• See www.efoodchain.eu

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Greenham Tasmania Case Study• The Never Ever program requires all participating producers to

register with HW Greenham & Sons, ensuring that precise records and all animal treatment data for the lifetime of the animal is documented,

• Customers can use QR code (the Quick Response barcode that is scannable with a smartphone) or enter the code details into this website to find the farm the beef originated from and get to know the farmers who raised it

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Key Elements of an Extended Australian Premium Beef Supply Chain

•On-farm activities focus on managing livestock production and assurance of livestock rearing practises•Off-farm activities focus on adding value after initial livestock rearing such as: feedlots, transportation, saleyards and processing

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Optimisation in Australian Red Meat Supply Chains

Australia already has a number of systems in place for tracking and certifying the quality and safety of meat products and production processes.

But there is limited integration of predictive models on sensor packaging to provide real-time monitoring, traceability and feedback along the entire meat supply chain

• Focus on supply chain profitability but by segments• LPA is the supply chain’s on-farm food safety certification program• For transportation, TruckCare maintains standards for handling

livestock• the National Feedlot Accreditation Scheme is an assurance system that

impacts on red meat quality and acceptability, animal welfare, environment and water.

• For Meat Processing, AQIS provides health certifications for microbial assessment, and monitoring at all meat processing plants

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Inter-Organizational ServicesLast 10 years increased focus on inter-organisational services:• AusMeat developed a common language that describes red meat

products• AusQual provides certification and attestation to various quality

management systems (including ISO 9001:2008) and the Pasture Fed Cattle Assurance System (PCAS).

• Introduced in 1999, NLIS system managing information on livestock from their birth through to slaughter to support post-mortem traceability of cattle to mitigate risks arising from disease and food incidents

• While food stability models are very advanced, it is not known:1. How such models can be effectively integrated with supply

chains sensors?2. Who values and benefits from model predictions of shelf-life and

safety.?3. Whether models developed under static laboratory conditions are

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Sensors for Validation• Increased interest in the development and use of a wide range

of a different types of sensors both at fixed points along beef chains and also as embedded tags/sensors directly aligned to different beef products/packages post-processing.

• The challenge between High/low cost; robustness, accuracy, scalability with these sensors remains and ROI is lacking for many of these sensor tags and sensor systems –

• Questions remains over what criteria should be used to select them, how accurate are they, under what conditions, how inter-operable are the data produced and how can they contribute to value chain profitability and sustainability?

• Other factors include: complexity of legal liabilities and changing food safety requirements, market dominance and resistance to providing greater transparency to consumers.

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Sensor Attributes

Sensor/Indicator Pros. Cons.Time temperature indicator

Easy to be integrated into packaging system, can be checked by naked eye, cheap and economical, can be measured by electronic devices, no contact with food.

No information about quality of food, must be conditioned before use.

Gas indicator Can be integrated into the packaging films, can be checked by naked eye, cheap and economical, can be measured by electronic devices.

No information about gas concentration, attached inside the package and its chemical dye may interfere in food quality.

Freshness indicator Sensitive, can be checked by naked eye, cheap and economical, can be measured by electronic devices.

False negatives results, attached inside the package which may interfere in food quality.

Biosensors Can be integrated into the packaging films, can be checked by naked eye, cheap and economical, can be measured by electronic devices, pathogen and microbial detection.

Can not detect low concentrated contamination, may have chemical effect on the food.

Gas sensors Sensitive, Can be integrated into the packaging films, high spatial resolution, can be checked by naked eye and optical devices, not affectedby heat, electromagnetic and stirring.

Nil

E-nose Accurate since uses an array of sensors, can detect many kind of volatile compounds, can be integrated into pattern recognition and decision making systems.

Expensive for packaging and commercial purpose.

Fluorescence-base (oxygen)

Sensitive, concentration of oxygen can be checked by optical device, can be used in headspace or in liquid, fast and reliable.

Can not be checked by the naked eye.

RFID tags (integrated withsensors)

Accurate, Can be integrated into barcodes, wireless technology, reading multiple products at once, fast.

The signal can be lost, expensive to becommercialized.

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7 Traceability Dimensions (Opara, 2003)

• Product traceability - the physical location of a product at any stage in the supply chain.

• Process traceability - the type of activities that have affected the product during the growing and post-harvest operations (what, where and when).

• Genetic traceability - the genetic composition of the product; includes information on the type and origin (source, supplier).

• Inputs traceability - type and origin (source, supplier) of inputs, e.g. fertilizers, processes or inputs used for preservation or transformation of the raw materials into processed products.

• Disease and pest traceability - traces the epidemiology of microbiological hazards and pests that may contaminate products.

• Measurement traceability relates to reference standards and assures the quality of measurements by observing various factors which may have impact on results (such as environmental factors, operations etc.)

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7th Traceability Dimension

Consumption Traceability

• how aggregated real-time data, including that feedback voluntarily provided by consumers through their mobile devices about products, is used to generate and provide value.

• The impact and implications for transforming business practices and production processes will be investigated in this dimension.

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The project also aims to determine the nature, type and granularity of the data/information attributes that are being recorded, manipulated and transmitted at different points in the supply chain and in response to the product and package transformations being supported.

Following McEntire et al (2010) these attributes are being considered in four dimensions:1. Breadth: Number of attributes linked to each traceable entity;2. Depth: Distance along supply chain entity tracked;3. Access: Traceability data availability and comprehensibility

along the supply chain;4. Precision: Accuracy and assurance of traceability data on entity

tracked in terms of attributes.

Traceability Data Attributes

Next Steps

On-going engagement with industry partners Involve:1. Direct engagement in problem-solving around challenges/issues

that have been identified2. Opportunity generation to stimulate the development of new

ideas/approaches to existing practices or the development of new practices.

3. Disruption & Innovation through expert analysis of the business, its environment and supply chain. It is anticipated that the research team will generate radical suggestions for alternative ways of using technology/systems to operate.

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Critical questions being addressed

• What are the service requirements for customer segments beyond a focal organisationas immediate partners?

• How can operational integration be achieved amongst the various supply chain members?

• What is the supply chain structure that best minimizes costs and provides competitive levels of service for the whole supply chain?

• Are there opportunities to reduce transportation costs in both the short term and the long term by cooperating amongst heavy vehicle users?

• Can current inventory management procedures support more stringent customer service demands including eco-labelling, origin, provenance and nutrients?

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Research in Progress

• This project is still in its scoping phase• Input and engagement with international collaborators is welcome

Benefits for Industry Partners• Better understanding and control of food safety and stability

through the supply chain• Improved understanding of consumer preferences and decisions in

specific markets delivered in real-time back to the producer• Ability to model choices to predict responses to specific

information/product variations• Sense-T sensing system and data platform to enable collection of

key environmental attributes from supplier/producer in real-time to prove performance through to the market

• Engagement with Government and worldwide institutions to facilitate access to expertise not easily otherwise engaged

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Thank You!

• Contact Points at Pathways to Market:• Food Stability Professor Mark Tamplin• Traceability, Sensors and Logistics A/Professor

Paul Turner (paul.turner@utas.edu.au)• Operations research Leorey Marquez

CSIRO Digital ProductivityGate 5, 71 Normanby Road, Clayton, VictoriaAustralia 3168

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Making it workReduce cost of sensorsDemonstrate valuePath to commercialisationDriven by end-users

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