TempTRIP system bears fruit

UK fresh fruit firm Blue Skies is using a time/temperature monitoring system from TempTRIP to help make sure that its products retain their quality as they travel from African fields to UK tables in as little as 48 hours.

Blue Skies employs more than 2,000 people in Ghana, Egypt, South Africa and Brazil, and supplies to a variety of customers – including some of the biggest supermarket chains in the UK, Europe and South Africa. The company sources fruit from local fields and cuts and packs them at local facilities.

“We believe in fair trade by adding value at the source. That’s why our fruit is cut and packed at the country of origin,” says Simon Derrick, communications manager at Blue Skies. “We return value to the local community by creating jobs and stimulating the economy. However, getting the freshly cut fruit from field to table quickly isn’t without challenges. The race against time begins the second fruit is harvested. Unlike other firms which use sea freight that can take weeks to reach consumers, Blue Skies makes use of the cargo holds of passenger aircraft to deliver a fresher, higher quality product.”

Before making the trip to the airport, fruit is packed into plastic trays. Depending on the fruit type, four-to-six trays are placed into a corrugated case. The cases are then transferred into air freight cargo containers (known as AKEs) that are lined with polystyrene and packed with dried ice. These are then loaded on to Blue Skies’ refrigerated trucks for the trip to the airport.

However, once the fruit arrives at the airport, its handling is out of the company’s direct control. Therefore, if a temperature problem occurs it is important to identify how and when it happened, says Blue Skies food technologist Joe Revell.
“Since Blue Skies employees cannot be with the shipment every minute of the journey to monitor its condition, the company is relying on the TempTRIP time/temperature monitoring system to tell it exactly what has happened during transit.

“The system incorporates three basic components—RFID smart cards, RFID reader with optional integrated barcode scanner and the internet. Users first set up an on-line profile that includes shipping, storage and receiving-point data plus temperature configurations. The smart cards are activated via the RFID reader at dispatch and are programmed to record temperature every 15 minutes. Blue Skies places a smart card into some of the containers before they leave the facility for the airport.

“When the containers reach their destination, the smart cards are stopped and the data is uploaded. We can then take a look at a graph that instantly gives us a picture of what happened during transport. It’s got hours on one axis and temperature on the other. We can look at any peaks in the graph and relate them to where the shipment was at that time.”

The TempTRIP system targets a broad range of perishable foods, including meat, dairy, juices, produce, ready-to eat meals and other fresh or processed foods.

“The TempTRIP approach enables the data to be shared transparently with all of the channel partners including growers, food processors, distributors, wholesalers and retailers,” says Phaedra Culjak, chief operations officer, TempTRIP. “This is powerful information that can be used to fine tune everything from which coolers, trucks or transportation partners perform better to which products should be rotated out of the warehouse first.”

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