Significant food scares (avian flu, mad cow disease, listeriosis, dioxin, foot-and-mouth disease) have shaken consumers’ confidence and trust in their food’s quality and even in the whole agribusiness sector. Traceability is becoming generalized with the aim of being able to keep track of a packaged foodstuff from the moment it is manufactured to the moment it is consumed.
The Traceo® label provides a solution to public health problems caused by breakage in the cold chain by making it possible to optimize a product's freshness. Its general applications are tracing of fresh foodstuffs in grocery stores, and monitoring prepared meals and sandwiches in the catering market. It can also be used in the health market for applications such as monitoring vaccines, blood collection bags, etc.
A microbiological freshness indicator, this new-generation adhesive label (time-temperature integrator) is programmed according to the desired tracing criteria and is applied directly over a bar code. Made up of a gel and microorganisms, it turns opaque when the product is no longer fit for consumption, either after accumulative exposure to excess temperature or, if the product has been suitably kept, when the expiration date has passed. When the label has turned opaque, the bar code can no longer be read or scanned. Those products no longer fit for consumption can be automatically and visually detected and will not even reach the consumer’s hands. Even the consumer can benefit from the technology by simply looking at the bar code before using the product, in the event that he kept it too long before consumption.
The producer activates the label when it is affixed to the end product. It then monitors and tracks the product’s freshness from the moment it leaves the factory until it enters a consumer's refrigerator, after going through distribution channels and supermarket shelves.