PART 2
New Technologies Tackle Food Safety
BY MEGAN WAITKOFF, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Innovations you can use to track, trace and protect your products (at costs that may surprise you).
Editor’s Note: This is part two of two on Food Safety and Security. In case you missed the first part in our May issue on food defense and third-party certifications, visit our website at www.fdp.com and search for “Playing it safe is no game for food packagers” in our May issue archive. How much are you willing to pay for your own food safety?
Would you pay a cent more for chicken if it has a freshness indicator on the packaging?
As a food manufacturer, are you willing to pay an extra cent per package to insure your brand?
Okay, so legitimizing the upfront capital of food safety technologies isn’t that cut and dry, but the outcome of turning a blind eye is. Technologies like microtagging and temperature-sensitive ink that used to be reserved for the pharmaceutical and medical industries are now hitting the food market at more reasonable price points. But some innovations can only go so far as current technology—and the Food and Drug Administration—allows.
Brave new world
The pharmaceutical industry is carrying the torch on safety and security technologies. Breakthroughs in nanotechnology are hitting pill bottles and over-the-counter shelves, and radio frequency identification (RFID) is making waves for pharmaceutical packages.
But while these technologies are being discussed in the food industry, they’re far from commercialization. “Food works in a much lower market than pharmaceutical,” says Keith Schneider, associate professor with the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department at the University of Florida. “You really have to wait for the second and third generation RFID products to make it more practical.”
While RFID and nanotechnology may be cost-prohibitive for the food industry, cutting-edge technologies are available that address the same issues at a fraction of the cost.
YottaMark, for example, has developed a track-and-trace system that follows products through the supply chain. The most recent installment, BerryTrace, is aimed at the fresh berry industry. A 24-digit uncorruptable security code can be printed on a label, or directly onto a package, using any printer already hooked up to a production line to print date and lot codes. The code is visible to the naked eye and correlates to what field a product or ingredient was picked from, on what day, at what crop location, and also includes “Sell by” and “Enjoy by” dates.
Anyone in the production cycle, from plant managers to packagers to consumers, can type the code into YottaMark’s secure host website to retrieve product information, and also to find out about possible alerts and recalls. But when developing this technology, YottaMark president Elliott Grant was aware of the reluctance of the food industry to make a substantial investment. “We needed to provide a solution that was practically a no-brainer and cost-effective,” he says. “Our philosophy now is about the massive volumes and low price points that are demanded by the packaging industry.”
ARmark Authentication Technologies goes beyond track-and-trace to offer brand protection through microtagging. The tags are 20 microns thick (thinner than a human hair) and can hold batch codes, longitudes, company zip codes—just about anything printable. The tags can be made out of edible stock and applied to the overprint varnish on a label, part of a package adhesive or actually extruded in a packaging material. The markings in the tag can be seen through a 100x microscope or with a handheld optical tool.
SICPA Secure Inks, a provider of security inks and systems for brand protection, is also trying to dive into the food and packaging industries. According to Russell LaCoste, sales director for North America, the company has contacted a number of food distributors about applying a temperature-sensitive ink to their packages that would display if a product has been exposed to too much heat or sunlight. Food distributors also should tag their food products with time-sensitive or date-sensitive markings. They can use encrypted or visible markings, LaCoste says.
Other companies like Ciba Specialty Chemicals address the food safety, rather than food security, angle. Ciba developed OnVu labels with time-temperature-indicating inks, applied directly to fresh produce packages, that fade in color based on a certain “fresh” time period indicated by the manufacturer. Cryolog similarly created (eO) freshness labels that change from green (fresh) to red (bad).
There’s also a push in the industry to improve the relationship between product coding and the consumer.
According to Dan Raftery, president of the Raftery Resource Network, a group called the Joint Industry Unsaleables Leadership Team, a collaborative effort of members of the Food Marketing Institute and the Grocery Manufacturers Association/Food Products Association, is leading a movement called the “Open Date Project” to further clarify how to improve the communication of product expiration codes. The goal is that improved communication will reduce the amount of product that’s out of code or expires in the food chain.
Raftery says the group developed a set of voluntary guidelines or recommendations for manufacturers or retailers that are currently under review. The findings will be released at the 2007 Joint Industry Unsaleables Management Conference in July.
But developing new technologies and guidelines are only half the battle. Getting the food industry to adopt them is the other.
Money walks
Even though applications that could redefine food safety and security would only cost a cent or two per package, food distributors are hesitant to consider them.
“It’s a hard sell because it’s an expense,” LaCoste says. “Packaging companies don’t really want to spend any money. They’re fighting penny wars.”
Perhaps the industry needs to consider the investment differently.
“It’s like insurance,” says Grant with YottaMark. “It’s very hard to put an ROI [return on investment] number on this. But you spend X-number of million dollars developing a brand over many years. How much is it worth insuring? That’s a better way to think about it than an extra penny on each label.”
Manufacturers also should develop a way to educate their shareholders about the importance of food safety technologies—and the financial setbacks a company might face if a product is recalled.
“They have to make a decision of whether or not to add another penny to a yogurt container, and it’s not about whether or not they want their product to be safe,” says Gabriele with ARmark. “These become business decisions because they have shareholders.”
Money isn't the only obstacle holding companies back. The food safety and security options can only extend as far as biotechnology, and the government, allows. Forward-thinking manufacturers and education institutions have a number of projects in the works.
Durand-Wayland Inc., a manufacturer of packing and labeling machinery, has been abuzz with a $38,000 machine that can etch edible labels onto fruit and vegetable skins. The labels could include standard codes, produce look-up codes, brand names, logos and country of origin, among other possibilities.
When Durand-Wayland first applied for approval from the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA demanded proof that the laser etching was a safe technology. The company submitted proof documents at the beginning of March of this year, and the FDA has 180 days to review it and decide whether or not to clear the technology. The FDA has already approved Foodmark, a similar marking technology from DataLase Inc.
According to Keith Schneider, a few “active packages” have been tossed around the University of Florida’s Center for Distribution and Retailing, which handles transportation and packaging issues. In one such package, the plastic turns blue if E. coli is present. But the exact chemical configuration still isn’t quite right, so the package remains a prototype. Another possibility is biosensors, which detect biological materials in a given environment. But innovations working in a perfect lab setting are one thing; incorporating them into mainstream packaging is another.
“There’s going to be a long way to go before packaging can detect bacteria in a product unless it’s right on the surface, contacting the film,” Schneider says. “If you’re trying to sniff out a salmonella or E. coli, I don’t know how to prevent that with packaging, at least in commercialization today.”
While consumers can and should demand assurance that the products they purchase were triple-checked for contaminations along the way, food safety might never be a guarantee.
“Outside, in the environment and in the soil, there’s no way you can make a totally safe piece of produce,” Schneider says. “You’re juggling the safest possible food supply versus an affordable food supply. If you find a way to prevent all food-born diseases, the food is no longer affordable. You have to feed millions of people, and the population is growing every day.”
