In response to a new federal food-safety law and growing consumer interest, vast amounts of new data are being generated about the complicated path that food takes from field to supermarket shelf.
And, increasingly, some of that information is being offered to curious shoppers, who in some stores can wave a smartphone above an apple or orange and learn instantly where it was grown, who grew it and whether it has been recalled.
A provision of the federal food-safety law passed last year requires that all players in the country’s food-supply chain be able to quickly trace from whom they received a food product and to whom they sent it. They’ll have to maintain that information in digital form, which, in some cases, consumers could tap into through their computers or phones.
The “one step forward, one step back” traceability requirement — for processed food and produce — is designed to make it easier for the Food and Drug Administration to identify the source of an outbreak of food- borne illness, trace its path and remove it from the food supply.
The new requirement represents a major adjustment for some parts of the nation’s food system, where small players still rely on handshakes and paper invoices.
The FDA has had trouble quickly pinpointing the source of national outbreaks of food- borne illness, a task complicated by a lengthy food-supply chain where tomatoes might change hands five times from farm to store.
Many in the food business already are using traceability technology, mostly relying on bar codes that can be affixed after harvesting to a piece of fruit or a crate. But the new law has triggered a small gold rush for technology companies angling for a piece of an emerging market, which covers food other than meat, poultry and egg products. They are competing to develop the tracking technology and manage the data.
Some are experimenting with radio-frequency identification and other complex methods, including etching identification codes on produce with lasers or micro-percussion markers.
“They each believe they have the holy-grail product-tracking solutions sitting in their laptop,” said David Acheson, former assistant commissioner for food protection at the FDA. “Somebody is probably going to make a bundle of money out of this.”
In some cases, companies are going beyond the federal requirement and making a portion of the traceability information available to consumers.
HarvestMark, based in California, has developed a bar- code sticker that can be placed on individual fruits and vegetables or packaging.
Shoppers can scan the sticker with a smartphone or go to the HarvestMark website and enter the number from the sticker to learn the path the food has taken and other information the farmer chooses to share, such as the harvest date. The technology also allows the consumer to send a comment to the farmer, said Elliott Grant, the chief marketing officer for HarvestMark.
“You can click a button and tell the farmer, ‘These are the greatest strawberries I’ve ever had,’ or whatever. … It’s about using technology to put people back in touch with the people who grow their food.”
