How Does IoT Ensure the Highest Quality of Produce on Your Table?
Food is a necessity, food is a passion, food can become a dangerous weapon.
Food has a lot of options and their impact depends on how we approach to processing, operations, storage and transportation. To ensure the highest quality and security of produce that make it to stores and our tables, producers reach out more often for the help of modern technologies.In today’s article we will focus on metrics and situations that are measured and evaluated thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT). Let’s focus on these areas:
- temperature monitoring during the whole supply chain
- logistics
- malfunction predictions
- quality monitoring
- inventory prediction and waste minimization
- intelligent operations management
- better customer care
Temperature in the Food Supply Chain
One of the most significant uses of IoT in the food industry is the monitoring of temperature and humidity during production, storage and transportation. Thanks to the use of temperature sensors, the company can send collected data to the cloud where they are analyzed in real time and provide information about the state of the produce. This solution helps with minimization of contamination risk and ensurues that products are stored and transported in optimal conditions.
Outside of monitoring and information, cloud systems provide the option to use limit values that are already labeled as critical and their reaching has to be resolved immediately. It is not just about the proactive approach of employees that would check and monitor the state online through a dashboard but the system can also give alerts when the limmit values are in reach. Individually set up alerts are adapted to the individual needs of each food product and responsible personnel can be informed on time when the environment is no longer suitable.
Transportation
The IoT technology enables monitoring of common transportation data – for example the position of the vehicle or route. It is also possible to connect additional sensors to the system to collect additional food related data.
When focusing on food transportation, IoT can be used to monitor the temperature inside vehicles and ensuring it stays constant during the whole journey. For instance, sensors can monitor the temperature inside the vehicle transporting food and if the temperature rises above the set limit, an alert can be sent to immediately react and ensure the produce is delivered in the best state.
This means that the alerts cannot be only meant for the employees but the commpany also has to be able to deliver alerts to any third parties that participate on the supply chain, like an external logistics company. This way the system ensures that at every step, the right person is notified when something goes wrong.
Failure Predictions
An additional option to use IoT in the food industry is to predict machine failures, for example of fridges and freezers. Thanks to the sensor data, the device parameters can be monitored in real time – temperature, humidity and other individual factors. If the received values are outside of the set limits, a notification is send pointing out the nearing failure so the company can put in mmeasures to prevent a problem from occurring.
Thanks to these measures it is not always possible to uncover a non-functioning machine and exchange it but mainly ensure the device problem doesn’t corrupt the quality of the food and even doesn’t spoil themm in a way for themm to become immediate waste.
Quality Assurance
IoT can monitor the quality of food for example the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere or the content of chemicals in the products. If the sensors detect unsuitable conditions – increased levels of dangerous chemicals or the presence of pathogenes – an alert can be generated immediately to take action quickly. Temmperature checks are a must becuase it prevents for instance the drying of meat during preparation or excessive product temperatures.
Supplies Predictions and Waste Minimization
IoT in the food industry is not limited only to monitoring during storage and transportation. It can also be used to predict the amount of products that will have to be purchased and how much will the customers be interested in the specific products. This use can be especially useful for large chains and supermarkets that can be better able to plan inventory and prevent unnecessary waste.
Intellligent Production Management
An additional use can be in the area of intelligent management of production. Thanks to the IoT technologies the production lines can be connected to the Internet and the data about operations and productions can be analyzed and optimized to reach higher efficiency. Sensors can help with the identification of potential problems during the production, enabling a fast and efficient solution of such problems.
Better Customer Care
Outside of production and storage, IoT can also help with a better customer experience. IoT sensors in restaurants can be used to make the experience of the visitors much more pleasant. They can also be used to monitor orders and preferences to increase personalization.
The risk of spoilt food can also be minimized by the use the Internet of Things. If not, the relationship with customers can deteriorate and court cases could even occurr.
IoT in the Service of the Food Industry
The benefits of using IoT in the food industry are clear. Thanks to it is possible to increase efficiency of production, decrease waste and make customer experience better. At the same time, it enables producers and shop chains to become more responsible towards the environment and minimize the impact on it. IoT in the food industry is becoming more common and this technology has the potential to change the way we produce, store and purchase food.
