Radio Frequency Identification Usage in Food Traceability
Abstract Challenges and opportunities of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) adoption for food traceability are treated and evaluated considering, in food supply chains, the different areas (production process, logistics, and distribution) and applications (process, warehouse and retail management, cold chain monitoring, logistic, intelligent packaging, and anticounterfeit) The options offered by RFID systems at different frequencies are presented, compared, and discussed, considering the difficulties and constraints which limit the large scale adoption in the food sector. Aspects which should be carefully evaluated when designing traceability frameworks considering traceable unit size, reading system configuration in static and dynamic conditions, orientation, tag size, and tag to tag collision problem are covered. Examples of RFID implementations in a particular food supply chain, such as meat, cheese, fish, food and vegetables, and plants are reported.