Introduction
The delivery of any goods from the place of their production to the points of sale and the user is a very responsible part. The delivery of food requires more responsibility precisely because of its rapid perishability. On the way from the farm to the customer, 25-30% of fruits and vegetables are lost due to poor supply chain and product spoilage (Onwude et al., 2020).
Several criteria need to be met to keep food fresh, but temperature is the main component. Lighting and humidity also play an important role, so these factors must be carefully controlled. The heterogeneity of the transported products can hurt quality due to different sensitivities to storage conditions.
Monitoring systems should also be in place for each critical factor in product storage. If all requirements are met, the duration of transportation should be short. Managing the cold supply chain is a complex but important task that can ensure the freshness of the delivered products. Keeping fruits, vegetables, or any other high-quality food products through the cold chain ensures the company’s reputation, reduces losses, expands the market, and ensures customer safety.
Cool Supply Chain Technology
The use of modern methods in the cold supply chain helps to keep more products fresh. These modern methods include multisensors, radio frequency identification, mathematical modeling, and spectroscopy (Akram et al., 2023). Multisensors react to chemicals released from products, analyze odors, and signal aromatic changes associated with spoilage processes. Radiofrequency identification helps ensure transportation transparency by wirelessly identifying products’ location.
Tracking the supply chain path helps to react faster to possible problems in logistics operations, such as stops. Spectroscopy is a method that allows you to detect the presence of harmful substances, chemical changes, and ripeness levels through the interaction of light with the product. Mathematical modeling aims to predict future changes and the impact of various factors on the product, which helps to determine the likely hazards for each type of product.
Maintaining a constant temperature of the product is the most important criterion during transportation to keep it fresh. The decision-making system technology is designed to select the right traceability technology for specific products (Óskarsdóttir & Oddsson, 2019). The tree is built in the format of statements and branches according to the affirmative or negative answer. For example, this framework helps to track the temperature history of a perishable product such as fish.
An active or semi-passive radio frequency identification system allows temperature monitoring at control points. Another application may be to determine the origin of the fish and provide information about the pens where the fish was raised. Automation and storage of big data are also possible thanks to cold chain technology and this framework (Óskarsdóttir & Oddsson, 2019).
Conclusion
To summarize, fruits, vegetables, and other perishable products must be kept in specialized conditions. These include humidity, light, transportation time, and most importantly, temperature. To maintain these criteria, it is necessary to constantly monitor them, including radio frequency identification, various multisensors, spectroscopy, and more. A support structure for the technologies used to track the cold supply chain is a solution to the monitoring issue. Hence, it helps in ensuring supplier reputation and customer satisfaction.
References
Akram, H. W., Akhtar, S., Ahmad, A., Anwar, I., & Sulaiman, M. a. B. A. (2023). Developing a Conceptual Framework Model for Effective Perishable Food Cold-Supply-Chain Management Based on a Structured Literature Review. Sustainability, 15(6), 4907. Web.
Onwude, D. I., Chen, G., Eke-Emezie, N., Kabutey, A., Khaled, A. Y., & Sturm, B. (2020). Recent Advances in Reducing Food Losses in the Supply Chain of Fresh Agricultural Produce. Processes, 8(11), 1431. Web.
Óskarsdóttir, K. H., & Oddsson, G. V. (2019). Towards a decision support framework for technologies used in cold supply chain traceability. Journal of Food Engineering, 240, 153–159. Web.