09/26/07 New shipping label from Idaho company

In a small shopping center in Boise 21 people work for a company called Pak Sense. It didn't exist three years ago. They are making hi-tech labels that determine the freshness of food products. The company was founded by Tom Jensen after one of his friends sat next to a meat industry executive on an airplane. CHILDRESS "And this executive was lamenting about how he was unable to accurately and inexpensively track the time and temperature of his product during transportation from his distribution centers out to his customer sites." Pak Sense marketing program director Amy Childress says Jensen's solution is a self adhesive device about the size of a sugar packet to be used in place of larger more expensive monitors. CHILDRESS "Made it really easy to use. All you really have to do is snap the corner of the label and apply it to the product. The label itself is actually recording temperature data. It's tracking time and temperature data and its actually storing that information inside the label itself." Pak Sense started shipping its labels in April, 2006 and today they're sending out thousands of them, thanks to one supermarket chain. More to this story tomorrow. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott