January 9, 2006
Volume 3 Issue 94

Food Safety Vs Technology… The Challenge Of Getting A lot Of Information In A Little Space

   The question arises how do we get all of this info on to bar codes that are small enough to fit on all items. Currently the best bar-code to try and track a product is the GS1-128 (formally the UCC-128). This can carry 48 numbers that can include info such as batch number, lot number, different size info, net weight, and many other types of information. The problem with this system is that you can not scan the product at the point of sale. This barcode was devolved to provide a global standard for exchanging data between different companies not necessarily for tracking products.

    GS-1, the organization that was talked about in Issue 93, has a bar code standard called RSS that may fix that problem. RSS means “Reduced Space Symbology” and can carry all the info that a UPC has but also information like GTIN numbers, lot numbers and expiry dates. RSS-14 bar codes can hold up to 14 numbers while RSS Expanded can carry 74 Numeric or 41 Alphanumeric and carry extra information like serial number and package weight but are also bigger in size. These barcodes can also be stacked on top of each other to save room on the package.

   These bar codes shown above are what the produce industry is looking into to try and solve their current tracking dilemma. Not only do these RSS-14 Stacked Omnidirectional barcodes hold more information they are also smaller than your average UPC bar code. An average UPC bar code is 1.020" high and 1.469" wide while RSS bar codes like the ones above are usually 0.5’’ high and 1.0’’ wide.  Knowing the lot number of a specific piece of product is key when trying to trace back a product. The produce industry, in particular, has a challenge to try and fit as much information on their product as they can in a limited amount of space. Bar codes like the Expanded RSS have all of the information needed to track food though out the supply chain but come at a cost of space.

   You can see from the picture above the difference in size and how it would impossible to put an Expanded RSS label on the apple to the right.  Although bigger in size the Expanded RSS standard has a lot more opportunity to create a product that is completely traceable from farm to market and from customer back to farm.

   With this type of bar-coding system in place you will be able to track a primal cut of beef from packing to the POS (point of sale). You know the batch number of the package along with the lot number of where that beef came from. The great advantage of RSS Expanded is that is doesn’t stop there. You can also track a piece of beef from the customer who bought it back to the farm:

   You can see that with a customer’s frequent shopper card you can find out exactly which batch of meat that they bought and track that all the way back to which case of primal cuts it was, then you can go even further and track those primal cuts all the way back to the cow they came from. According to the article from the Philadelphia Inquirer that we referenced in Issue 92, companies have to be able to be able to present where the a product came from and where it is going all with in 48 hours notice. This “one-up/one-down traceability” would not only become easier with a barcode that holds all the information it would become a lot faster. For food distributors, that means that you will be able to track where a case of product came from and where it is going all by just scanning the bar code. Just think how great this information would be to have if you had to recall a specific batch of a product. You can now not only find out exactly who bought meat from that batch and contact them directly but also track the product back to the farm to see exactly where the problem occurred. Like we said before the problem with this type of bar code is that it takes up a lot of space on the package so it is great for bigger packaged items like meat but impossible to do for smaller items like produce. The challenge of the future will be to try and fit all of the info needed to track a product throughout the supply chain in a size that can fit on any package.  

In next week’s issue we will be talking about how having a food software system can help you track these types of data.

Traceability Is Law…Not Convenience

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