Temperature control of food transportation through utilization of RFID labels and smartphones

On July 15, SATO (Minato Ward, Tokyo), Okinawa Cellular Telephone (Naha City, Okinawa), and KDDI Research (Fujimino City, Saitama) announced that they have developed a system for precisely controlling temperature using RFID thermal logger tags (labels) during the transportation of the Okinawan brand of strawberries, "Churashima Berry," which are grown and sold by Okinawa Cellular Telephone. The system's full-scale operation has been in operation since June. "Churashima Berry" is a specialty of Okinawa, cultivated and shipped by Okinawa Cellular Telephone in a fully sealed plant factory utilizing ICT. By cultivating it in a plant factory, Okinawa Cellular Telephone endeavors to eliminate the use of agricultural chemicals and to secure a stable yield and good shipping conditions.

Through this new development the products' temperature was recorded throughout the logistics process, from the producers' shipments to delivery in retail stores. This enabled further quality assurance and an investigation into product degradation causes. There is an increased need to transport and store food in optimum temperatures to maintain freshness and prevent quality degradation. Until now, transportation management has involved measuring the temperature of products at the time of shipment or at a specific relay point in a logistics chain. However, it has been difficult to continuously obtain and manage temperature history right from the time of shipment due to costs and other associated factors. The newly developed system is equipped with the RFID temperature logger tag "LogBiz-Thermo," which was developed by SATO, on the shipping box. LogBiz can record and store temperature history data for 2 weeks, every 5 minutes, from the point of shipping until delivery.

Under this system, when "Churashima Berry" are shipped, the producer attaches LogBiz to the shipping boxes and uses a smartphone to start recording the temperature (the temperature is automatically recorded every 5 minutes from this point onward). The recorded temperature data is transmitted to the temperature transition management system on the cloud using the smartphone's NFC communication functionality. From here, when the transport company receives the goods, they use their smartphone to transmit the current location information and temperature history data up to that time to the management system, again using NFC. When the transporter then ships the goods, they update the temperature data one more time. By setting thresholds and monitoring temperature transitions on smartphones and cloud system dashboards, the transport quality is controlled through appropriate routes, times, and temperatures.

There are around 1000 LogBiz mechanisms in operation. The temperature data is uploaded to the temperature transition management system using smartphones both at the time of receipt and shipment by producers and distributors. When the temperature threshold is crossed, a warning is displayed to the system's operator. This system enables quality assurance during the transportation of "Churashima Berry." It maintains brand equity and provides consumers with a sense of security.

SATO oversaw provision of LogBiz, developing a cloud-based thermal history control system, and developing applications for smartphones. KDDI Research was responsible for analyzing quality degradation due to temperature changes during transportation. In the future, the group plans to further develop a system that warns against quality degradation due to temperature changes.