The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been sharing information about its final rule on Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods. It includes traceability recordkeeping — knowing where the product is coming from, and where it was sourced, handled and packaged. FDA’s stated goal is “faster identification and rapid removal of potentially contaminated food from the market, resulting in fewer foodborne illnesses and/or deaths.”

One of the ways technologies can help companies meet this requirement is through smart labels that trace packages throughout the supply chain journey, from where the product was sourced, where it moved throughout shipping, from warehouses to trucks, and all the way to the consumer.

While companies are meeting the FDA requirements on traceability, they could also invest in automatic temperature tracking and tracing with smart labels embedded right into the packaging. In addition to measuring where the product is sourced, handled and packaged, they can now precisely measure the temperature of the package, and get alerts when it falls outside acceptable parameters. For farmers, suppliers, logistics providers, distributors and retailers, this would be an easy and reliable way to trace perishable shipments through the supply chain.

Smart labels are currently available to handle chilled foods such as expensive meats, fruits and vegetables shipped from all over the world. These labels can accurately measure temperature from -10 to 60 degrees Celsius, and automatically transmit data to an app or the shipper’s management system, generating alerts to proactively avoid spoilage and fulfill compliance requirements.

As technology in smart labels evolves, they’ll soon be able to handle deep freeze temperatures for products that need to stay frozen. In particular, there’s been a big push in the market for temperature tracking with fish, because in the event of a recall, it’s impossible to isolate which fish catch is the target, forcing the industry to do a broad recall. With smart temperature labels, companies will be able to trace the origins of where the fish was sourced, and closely monitor the temperature through the supply chain journey.

The big game changer for the industry is that because the cost of developing smart labels has come way down, it’s now possible to mass-manufacture thin-film wireless labels, and put them on every item as it goes through the cold chain. They’re thin enough to print out from a thermal printer, attach flat to a package, and are safe for air transport and disposal, with alternative battery coating incorporated in the label. 

This enables, for the first time, the tracking of shipments at a per-piece level. Before this, if a pallet contained a package of spoiled fish or meat, the whole pallet would need to be thrown out. With smart temperature labels embedded on each package, companies can determine precisely which packages have gone bad.

While traceability is important, having simultaneous, trustworthy temperature tracking on every parcel will reduce the risks of spoilage and total product loss, provide more accountability to end users, and improve the efficiency and reliability of the entire cold chain. We’re excited to see how these technology innovations in smart labels will be applied more broadly throughout the cold chain.

Keiley Ostrow is vice president of business development at Reelables.