Food and Livestock Traceability

By Ms Emma Napier and Dr Peter Harrop

Summary of the Report

Recent devastating outbreaks such as foot and mouth disease, mad cow disease and avian flu are driving strict new legislation on food traceability. In addition, consumers are also demanding more information about the food they consume (as do the police and customs).

This report analyses the need for RFID, DNA and other technologies to enable food traceability. Ten year forecasts, case studies and technology evaluations provide a complete analysis on the topic in this 250 page market intelligence report researched globally by IDTechEx experts.

Traceability has become a buzzword in the food industry. Consumer demands for higher-quality foods and more variety have never been greater. Spurred on by recent food scares around the world, such as mad cow disease and bioterrorism fears, governments are forcing the adoption of food traceability systems.

Everyone from producer to retailer will be affected by food traceability. This state-of-the-art review deals with the key topics of traceability - technology, law, forecasts and case studies.

A must read for anyone involved in the food industry.

Report at a glance

Although tens of millions of RFID tags have been applied to livestock and food and millions of biometric procedures have been carried out, there is no analysis of the global situation and the lessons of success and failure. The potential for RFID tagging of livestock is billions yearly and the potential for radio tagging of food is in trillions a year, but what are the forecasts for such tagging at animal, pallet/case and item level for the next ten years? Which countries are in the lead and where will the next wave of technologies, laws and mandates be applied? These and other vital questions are answered for the first time in this major new report.

Written by Emma Napier, a practising veterinarian, and backed by the IDTechEx technical experts located across the world, this report analyses what is going on from fish to cattle, from Botswana to Japan and Canada. It identifies the most impressive suppliers and putative suppliers, the new technologies, the market drivers and much more.

This industry is on the move in a major way. It includes market pull, with McDonald’s the world’s largest outlet for cooked meat recently mandating full traceability from suppliers and Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, mandating RFID on all incoming pallets and cases. This is a prelude to tagging everything. It has legal push with the new European Union legislation in 2005 demanding “one up one down” traceability and the US Homeland Security legislation demanding unprecedented levels of traceability. China and Japan are also in the lead, and they have their own concerns. For example, Japan is convicting criminals that pass off inferior foreign fish as coming from Japanese waters.

Billion dollar businesses will be created as a consequence - much the same as happened with barcodes years ago.

IDTechEx believes that by 2015 900 billion food items could be RFID tagged, and 824 million livestock will have more sophisticated, more expensive tags on or in them. However, new technologies, now being developed, will be needed for the food items. The livestock figure could easily be doubled if chickens are tagged, something of vital interest to the Government of Thailand, which ships 400 million chicken carcases yearly and could have its whole industry wiped out by the new, virulent avian flu.

Table of Contents

	EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
1.	INTRODUCTION
1.1.	Food supply chain
1.1.1.	Food supply 2005
1.1.2.	Consumer interest
1.1.3.	Public confidence vs. food safety
1.1.4.	Key issues
1.2.	Definition of traceability
1.3.	Types of traceability
1.3.1.	Internal traceability
1.3.2.	External traceability
1.4.	Drivers of traceability:
1.5.	Need for Traceability
1.6.	Food scares
1.6.1.	BSE
1.6.2.	Scrapie
1.6.3.	Foot and Mouth Disease
1.6.4.	Bird flu
1.7.	Fraud
1.8.	Food residues
1.8.1.	Food residues
1.8.2.	Case study: Coca-Cola Europe
1.8.3.	Case study: Perrier water France
1.8.4.	Case study: Honey in China
1.8.5.	Case study: Malachite green in salmon Europe
1.9.	Food poisoning
1.10.	Advantages of traceability
1.10.1.	Animal Identification
1.10.2.	Consumer Demand
1.10.3.	Market Access
1.10.4.	Case study: Freedom Foods UK
1.10.5.	Government interest
1.11.	Statement of independence
2.	IMPLEMENTATION OF FOOD TRACEABILITY
2.1.	EAN.UCC – GS1
2.1.2.	EAN Fish
2.2.	CIES
2.3.	Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC)
2.4.	FoodTrace
2.4.1.	Global Food Traceability Forum (GFTF)
2.5.	Can-Trace
3.	TRACEABILITY OF ANIMALS
3.1.	Animal Identification
3.1.1.	Cattle Identification
3.1.2.	Sheep identification
3.1.3.	Pig Identification
3.1.4.	Poultry Identification
3.1.5.	Fish Identification
3.2.	Methods of identification
3.2.1.	Paper
3.2.2.	UK Cattle Passports
3.2.3.	British Cattle Movement Service
3.2.4.	Branding, ear notching and tattooing
3.2.5.	Bar-coded ear tags
3.2.6.	RFID identification
3.2.7.	Tags with sensors
3.3.	Fish tagging
3.3.1.	External tags
3.3.2.	Branding Fish
3.3.3.	Snout tag
3.3.4.	Electronic tag
3.3.5.	Supplier Case study: Destron Fearing
3.3.6.	Case study: Beaver Street Fisheries US
3.3.7.	Case study: Newfoundland Government Canada
3.3.8.	Case study: Pacific States Marine US
3.3.9.	Case study: Queensland DPI Australia
3.4.	Biometric Techniques
3.4.1.	Optical identification
3.4.2.	Retinal imaging
3.4.3.	Iris imaging
3.4.4.	DNA methods
3.5.	Case studies of different technologies in action
3.5.1.	Optibrand – retinal imaging
3.5.2.	Allflex DNA tag
3.6.	Forecasts
3.6.1.	Future situation by country
3.6.2.	Forecasts of RFID use 2005-2015
4.	TRACEABILITY OF ANIMAL PRODUCTS
4.2.	Paper
4.3.	Barcodes
4.3.1.	Linear (one dimensional)
4.3.2.	Two dimensional
4.3.3.	Composite and Reduced Space
4.4.	RFID on animal products
4.4.1.	RFID in the cold chain
4.4.2.	Case study: Syscan International
4.4.3.	Case study: Findus
4.4.4.	Case study: KSW – Microtec
4.4.5.	Case study: GLI
4.4.6.	Case study: Absoft Thermatrak
4.4.7.	Case study: International Association of Iberian Pig Portugal/ Spain
4.4.8.	Case study: Campofrio Spain
4.4.9.	Case study: Foodsafe Botswana
4.4.10.	Case study: Maruetsu Japan
4.4.11.	Others
4.5.	RFID in food safety
4.5.1.	Case study: The SIRA Food Sentinel System US
4.6.	RFID in the supply chain
4.6.2.	Case study: Wal-Mart and others back RFID
4.6.3.	Case study: US Military
4.6.4.	Power PaperID™ - active RFID
4.7.	Summary of RFID trends
4.8.	Biometric methods
4.8.1.	DNA fingerprinting
4.8.2.	Case study: Maple Leaf foods Inc
4.8.3.	Case study - Superquinn Supermarkets
5.	MEAT AUTHENTICATION
5.1.	DNA methods
5.1.1.	Case study FoodExpert-ID US
5.2.	Trends in meat tracking and tracing
5.2.1.	Trends in Japan
6.	FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE
6.2.	TraceFish project
6.3.	RFID for fish
6.4.	Case study: Salmon - Norway and Chile
7.	FRESH PRODUCE, SEEDS AND BEVERAGES
7.1.	Fresh Produce
7.2.	Seeds
7.2.1.	Soybean
7.2.2.	RFID package tagging
7.3.	Beverages
7.3.1.	Wine and Viniculture
7.3.2.	Case study: Flying Null’s RFID ribbon on wine
7.3.3.	Case study: The Vignerons de Laudun winery France
7.4.	Foodservice supply chain
8.	MILK AND EGGS
8.1.	Milk
8.2.	Eggs
9.	GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS
10.	BIOTERRORISM
10.1.1.	Case study: Global Technology Resources
11.	FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES
11.1.	Printed Electronics
11.2.	Toxin Guard™
11.3.	Nanobarcodes®
11.4.	Iontophoretic tattoos Israel
	TABLES
3.1.	RFID projections in numbers and value of tags 2005-2015 for all items, pallets/ cases and animals.
3.2.	Projections in numbers of tags 2005-2015 for food items, food in pallets/cases and for livestock.
	FIGURES
1.1.	Four possible scenarios representing public concerns over food safety
1.2.	Birchgrove free range hens
1.3.	BSE is a cattle disease
1.4.	Ann Veneman
1.5.	Suffolk sheep in New Zealand
1.6.	Cow with FMD
1.7.	Poultry market in Thailand
1.8.	Cock fighting
1.9.	Healthy baby
1.10.	Chinese honey production
1.11.	The pathogens causing food poisoning
1.12.	RSPCA’s Freedom Food in the UK.
2.1.	EAN 13
2.2.	UPC-A
2.3.	EAN 128
3.1.	Cattle identification
3.2.	Leaflet on sheep identification in the UK
3.3.	Sow with ear tag
3.4.	There are many ways to identify a fish
3.5.	UK cattle passport
3.6.	Cattle branding iron
3.7.	Cherokee Park Ranch, Colorado
3.8.	Visually reading tags can be a problem in sheep
3.9.	Aleis StocTraka system
3.10.	DEFRA pilot trial
3.11.	Allflex lightweight sheep RFID tag
3.12.	AVID microchip
3.13.	Insertion of a rumen bolus
3.14.	Aleis rumen bolus
3.15.	Tekvet RFID ear tag and sensor
3.16.	Snout tag
3.17.	Allflex RFID implant for fisheries
3.18.	Structures of the eye used for identification
3.19.	Retinal scan
3.20.	Position of iris (Iridian)
3.21.	The optibrand system
3.22.	The optibrand reader
3.23.	Allflex DNA tag
3.24.	Aleis multiread sheep system
3.25.	Suffolk sheep in New Zealand
3.26.	Threat to humans through close contact with infected birds
4.1.	The evolution of tracking technologies
4.2.	PDF 417
4.3.	Matrix code
4.4.	Composite code
4.5.	RSS 14
4.6.	RSS 14 stacked
4.7.	RSS 14 Limited
4.8.	RSS Expanded
4.9.	Tempsens label
4.10.	Syscan reader
4.11.	Bioett biosensor
4.12.	GLI’s mems card
4.13.	Smart and Secure Tradelanes
4.14.	SIRA barcode
4.15.	The Food Sentinel SystemTM
4.16.	Progression of usage of RFID tags and systems in packaging
4.17.	Flexible battery from power paper
4.18.	Genetic ID cross check packaged meat
4.19.	Pyxis Genomics Porktrac system
4.20.	Role of DNA in the pork chain
4.21.	TraceBack logo
5.1.	FoodExpert-ID chip
5.2.	Aeon company barcode
6.1.	Herring
6.2.	Wavecheetah
6.3.	Salmon slaughterhouse in Norway
7.1.	Laudun grapes
7.2.	Laudun wines
7.3.	RFID tagged sushi meals
8.1.	Breakfast milk
8.2.	Laying hens
8.3.	Reiner inkjet egg stamps
11.1.	Toxin Guard logo
11.2.	Toxin Guard™ system