Farm to Fork is an open transnational food information framework which allows customers purchasing food products to access traceability information about the product. Professor Robert Newman, from the University of Wolverhampton’s School of Technology (Project Coordinator), presented the RFID F2F project, that aims at showcasing to SMEs the benefits of Radio-frequency Identification from the producer to the consumer. Two categories have been addressed and presented to the audience with focus with focus on wine and fish sectors (pilots by University of Vigo, Iñigo Cuiñas, and University of Ljubljana, Mira Trebar).

1. Anuga Food Tec
RFID - From Farm to Fork
Cologne, 28th March 2012
Strengthening SME competitive
advantage through RFID implementation
Prof. Bob Newman
www.rfid-f2f.eu
@RFIDfarmtofork

2. The RFID from Farm to Fork project
What it is
• EU CIP Project
• 9 Partners in 5 countries (UK, Spain, Italy,
Slovenia, Belgium)
• Aim - to provide consumers with a means to
find out where their food comes from
• Provide return on investment for all stages of
the food production chain
– Area: Internet evolution and security
– Objective: Strenghening SME competitive
advantage through RFID implementation
– Project reference: 250444
• Article RFID Journal
“Ambitious European Project Traces Food
from Farm to Fork”

3. Anuga Food Tec
RFID - From Farm to Fork
Cologne, 28th March 2012
Strengthening SME competitive
advantage through RFID implementation
Prof. Iñigo Cuiñas
www.rfid-f2f.eu
@RFIDfarmtofork

4. Denomination of Origin Ribeiro

5. Vitivinícola del Ribeiro
The company
• Winery established in 1968
– The first “Ribeiro” wine bottled and
labelled: “Pazo”
• Two goals:
– Recovering the quality varietals of the
region
– Modernise the winemaking techniques
• Production
– 5M bottles per year
– 40% of the area
– http://www.vinoribeiro.com

6. Vitivinícola del Ribeiro
Business process
Distribution
Winery
Vineyard

7. Vineyards

8. Business flow

9. Pilot
RFID/WSN proposal
• At the vineyard
– Wireless Sensor Network
– ZigBee technology
• At the winery
– RFID for traceability purposes “what”, “where” and “when”
• Additional benefits: automate data registration , error reduction,
accurate inventory control, better information sharing
– Covering different steps of the business process:
• Farm: grapes collection
• Processing: grapes selection, chute dumping, pressing, must/wine
movements and treatments
• Storage and delivery
• For customers
– NFC/QR on products to access traceability information via web services

10. WSN
Network deployment

11. WSN
Network deployment

12. WSN
Connectivity
• Connection among nodes
• Mesh topology
• If one node fails
– Automatic reconfiguration
• Problems
– Pine trees
– Vineyard foliage

13. WSN
Connectivity
• Global System Architecture

14. RFID
Hardware definition

15. RFID
Software
• Most of the data collected by a RFID
handheld reader
• Handheld capture application
– Separate forms
– Each one for each production process
• An EPCIS compliant XML file is
generated with the data collected
• Extra information can be introduced
– Chemical analysis data, i.e.
• English and Spanish versions of the
application

16. RFID
Software
• Not many fields to fill
• Possibility of using touch screen or keyboard buttons.
• Information presented in an understandable way for the user
• Two consecutive readings of EPC and User memory in the same tag with
only one button click

17. RFID
Software

18. Traceability application

19. RoI
• WSN
– Reduction of time
• Yesterday, an operator goes each day to the vineyards to take data
• Now, data come to the computer
– Reduction of costs
• In personnel
• In treatments:
– Ambient data used as entry to plague prediction model
– Yesterday, 10-12 treatments against mildew
– Now, treatments only in hazard time (in 2011 no mildew hazards)
• RFID at winery
– Precision
• All movements in the winery are registered
– Reduction of time to obtain the traceability history of a product
• Yesterday, look among papers, Excel files, and notes (one morning)
• Now, instant response from software (few seconds)

20. RFID
NFC at the bottles
• Final users application
• An added value for
selection among wines:
– Those F2F tagged will
provide more information
than traditionally labelled
• Tests
– Samsung Nexus S

21. Anuga Food Tec
RFID - From Farm to Fork
Cologne, 28th March 2012
Strengthening SME competitive
advantage through RFID implementation
Prof. Iñigo Cuiñas
www.rfid-f2f.eu
@RFIDfarmtofork

22. Anuga Food Tec
RFID - From Farm to Fork
Cologne, 28th March 2012
Strengthening SME competitive
advantage through RFID implementation
Prof. Mira Trebar
Fish pilot (Slovenia)
Fonda
www.rfid-f2f.eu
@RFIDfarmtofork

23. Fish Pilot
• SME: Fonda.si.
• Fish farm location: northern part of Adriatic sea.
• Product: Piran sea bass.
• Fish grows for 3-4 years in ”natural conditions”.
• Delivery of fish from the sea to a consumer in one day.

24. Business Process
• All stages of supply chain.
• Fresh and smoked sea bass.
• Paper tag - Catch date, ...
• On sale: Slovenia, Italy, ...

25. RFID Implementation
Processing Logistics Fishmarket
• Farm: Growing, Feeding, Inspection.
• Processing: Sorting by product type, Preparing orders,
Weighing boxes, Printing RFID label, Adding RFID data
loggers.
• Logistics: Transport from processing, Receiving at coldstore,
Shiping from coldstore, Transport to retail/customer.
• Fishmarket: Receiving, Removing RFID data loggers.

26. Processing
• PC, Scale, RFID Printer, Handheld RFID Reader.
• Wireless Internet Connection.

27. Logistics
• PC, Fixed RFID Reader, 2 Reader Antennas.
• Internet Connection.
Receiving Shipping

28. Cold chain
’RFID data logger’
with Temperature
Sensor
(IDS d.o.o)
Cold store Transport

29. Consumer
• Presentation of results at Fishmarket.
• Important information:
– Place of origin,
– Freshness,
– Quality.
• Consumer scans QR code – receives the data.

30. Conclusions
• Replacement of manual based collection of data.
• Improved business processes.
• Labour savings, employees like the new system.
• ROI can be identified during longer period.
• Traceability data is available – web page.
• Consumers confidence is considerably improved.
http://www.wmrfid.org/farm2fork/tracenew.html?uri=tag/302D6D4306800780000F4A7E

31. Anuga Food Tec
RFID - From Farm to Fork
Cologne, 28th March 2012
Strengthening SME competitive
advantage through RFID implementation
www.rfid-f2f.eu
@RFIDfarmtofork

32. Principles
• Ownership of information
– Originator of data owns information
– Controls how much (or how little) is released
•Organisation
– One transnational system
• Don’t need different system for different retailers
• Don’t need different systems for different countries
• Independent, so trustable

33. How it works
Products are serialised
• Each product (unit) gets its own web site
• The website gives
– marketing information
– origin
– suppliers
– dates and times
– cold chain information
– etc, etc
• Web site can be accessed on in shop terminal (extended barcode)
• Can be accessed on mobile phone or tablet (QR code)

34. Technical details
• Fully conforms to EPC global specs
• Provides information sharing between companies using
shared database
• Control and ownership of information

35. Membership
Payment model is ‘per hit’
– costs more the more you get from it
– will also need to fund production tracing and equipment
Membership
– will organise group membership with appropriate
organisations
– biggest advantage for early adopters

36. Collateral benefits
• View through the supply chain
– efficient information sharing system
– suppliers can ‘see’ both ways through the supply chain
• Benefits of process traceability
– what you need depends on what you have
– process depends on uint tracking (RFID, barcodes), process
modelling, sensing technology
– Often when installed this increases efficiency
– better control
– able to track product when needed

37. Shared and private
How does an open, shared system provide
individual businesses with competitive
advantage?
Production Business
Production
data Business Productivity
Productiondata Business Productivity
gathering App
data gathering Productivity
App
gathering App
Open common infrastructure
Consumer
Consumer
Presentation
Consumer
Presentation
Presentation

38. • Common open infrastructure
– Maintained by Farm to Fork Foundation
• Database
• Services
• Protocols and standards
• Business specific systems
– Produced by accredited systems integrators
• Production tracking systems
• Business productivity apps
• Branding and Marketing in customer information

39. FARM TO FORK - the system
Set of open tools and standards to:
• Manage products, assets, locations and documents
– Create and manage barcodes and RFID tags
• Collect and query information about sensor data, procedures and processes
– Condition monitoring
– Hazard analysis and critical control points
• Share information with business partners
– With your customers as well
– Bidirectional exchange
Developed with over 10 years experience on the SMEs market
Pilots running in major food sectors
Deployed across all of Europe

40. FARM TO FORK - why do you need it?
• Farm2Fork is about information
– Collecting
– Exchanging
– Sharing
• Collecting this information is mandated by the law
– It does not create additional work
• Paper based document handling is a false economy
– You cannot use the information you produce

41. FARM TO FORK - information is not a burden
• It lets you use the information you collect
– Quality control
– Better use of resources
– Avoid costly mistakes
– Food safety
• Large savings in terms of time
– Time is the most precious of your assets, the most
costly of your ingredients

42. Call for expression of interest
• Farm to Fork Foundation
– Needs national organisations, grow by affiliation
• Producers and retailers
– Early adopters gain most advantage
• Systems integrators
– To build business specific systems

43. FARM TO FORK - If you want to know more…
Come to speak with us today!
We are at:
Hall 10.1 Stand C076a

44. Anuga Food Tec
RFID - From Farm to Fork
Cologne, 28th March 2012
Strengthening SME competitive
advantage through RFID implementation
www.rfid-f2f.eu
@RFIDfarmtofork