10/09/07 Hi-Tech Labels

Hi-Tech Labels. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. How do you determine the freshness of food products? Well unless you actually grow that product you don't really have a good idea. You can check the sell by date but that is when the store needs to turn the product. Now an Idaho company is working to help the food industry determine the freshness of products. It's called Pak Sense and is the brainchild of Tom Jensen who founded the company 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. That is Pak Sense marketing program director Amy Childress. Jensen came up with a hi-tech label that monitors the freshness of products. Childress says the labels are 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. The Boise based company is located in a shopping center and began shipping the labels in April last year. Childress says the label is attached to a food product, records the temperatures all the way through the food chain and does it much cheaper than current methods. CHILDRESS: Our label starts out at eleven and then goes down based on volume so we automatically already have already taken half the price out of what it costs to do this. Produce, fresh meat, dairy, seafood, all can be monitored by this system and if the temperature goes above or below its pre-programmed levels a yellow warning light flashes on the label. Already companies like John Morrell and Florida Natural use Pak Sense shipping labels and so does Albertson's LLC. CHILDRESS: They require their suppliers to put our labels on their loads before they ship them to their distribution centers. Many companies also keep the label with its information; attach it to the shipping documents where it can be used as reference in the event of a food safety issue. Childress says once the wine industry discovers the label that may open a new market for Pak Sense which has concentrated on the food industry initially. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.