With traceability regulations coming from the federal government, many growers, packers and shippers have had to change the ways they monitor their goods. But Intelleflex's CEO, Peter Mehring, argues that, rather than looking at new rules as a burden that produce industry members must bear, new tracking rules offer an opportunity to improve efficiency.“The Food Safety Modernization Act mandates these things that growers have to do,” said Mehring at this year's PMA Fresh Summit in Anaheim. “But instead of seeing them as a tax, we can give them the ability to update their tracking system to get more granular data.” That's imprtant because decisions informed by better data can result in more efficient use of resources and bigger savings.
Intelleflex provides a system that can be used to track produce. The tracking hardware can be placed on individual pallets, and information can be transmitted wirelessly and stored for analysis. In that sense, they provide the back-end for tracking systems, on top of which a number of custom methods for analyzing the data can be employed. What makes Intelleflex stand out is that they can offer a deep level of monitoring, and that kind of information can lead to real savings.
“There have been studies that say that almost 50 percent of our food is wasted,” said Mehring. “Some of that is on the consumer side, but about 33 percent of it is not on the consumer, and we can help cut down that number by providing more granular reporting.” The idea is that if one knows, based on information like temperature and humidity readings gathered by in-pallet tracking devices, the exact shelf-life of a pallet of produce, one can get that produce to a consumer well before it becomes another casualty of shrinkage.
“It's possible to pay for a new system with the savings that it provides,” said Mehring. “It's really an opportunity to upgrade something while getting in line with what already has to be done.”
For more information:
Peter Mehring
Intelleflex
+1 408 200 6500