Based on experience from a large number of industrial projects related to the supply chain, the transport experts at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML have expanded their successful planning software "DISMOD - modal distribution planning" just in time for the transport logistic trade fair in Munich with the latest processes and technologies as well as free ones Demo version put online.
For more than ten years there has been a controversial debate as to whether bisphenol A (BPA) poses a health risk to consumers. BPA is a building block for the production of the widely used polycarbonate plastics. Due to the EU's recent ban on bisphenol A in baby bottles, the substance has once again become the subject of public discussion. Against this background, the advisory committee of the Society for Toxicology has critically examined the current research results on bisphenol A and assessed possible health risks. The results were recently published in the Critical Reviews of Toxicology (Hengstler et al., 2011).
At the EURO ID 2011 trade fair at the beginning of April at the Berlin exhibition center, around 3700 visitors found out about the latest developments from the transponder scene from 101 exhibitors and an extensive supporting programme.
Regardless of where poultry or fish come from, freshness and food quality contribute directly to customer satisfaction. In order to ensure this, everyone involved in the supply chain must work together. The EU-funded research project CHILL-ON offers new technologies for the most complete traceability possible along the supply chain.
The event was opened last October with the contribution of the DIL institute director Dr. Volker Heinz on the subject of "New technologies for new markets". Product-friendly and energy-efficient processes were presented, the mechanisms of which have been known and tested for a long time and are increasingly being geared towards use in industry. One example is high-pressure technology. The aim of treating foodstuffs with hydrostatic pressure is often preservation while at the same time preserving the valuable ingredients. But this technology is also used in the structuring of products, in the context of biotechnological applications and in the functionalization of food. Shock wave technology, on the other hand, is a process in which hydrodynamic pressure waves are used in a targeted manner to exert mechanical influences on biological tissue and other solids. In this way, for example, the maturing and tenderizing of beef can be accelerated so that the product quality is increased and distribution and storage costs are reduced. The technology that makes use of the pulsating electric fields can be used, for example, to inactivate microorganisms and thus as a method of preservation. Sauces, seasonings, marinades and blood are examples of areas of application. The advantages of this process lie in the reduced energy requirement and the protection of the product.
Hours to months, in some cases even years, pass between the harvesting or production of a food and the consumption of the product. In order to store, transport and protect food from spoilage, it is packaged. Food packaging has changed a lot in the last few decades. For example, if you went shopping for milk 50 years ago, you also brought the milk jug made of glass or metal with you, today you usually buy a composite carton that is recycled after the milk has been consumed.
Instructions of this kind can be found in many package inserts: »The serum must be stored between +2° and +8° C. Both freezing and storage at elevated temperatures should be avoided, since the effectiveness and tolerability can be impaired.« Medications, vaccine serums or blood preserves are very temperature-sensitive. Doctors, pharmacists and hospitals also have refrigerators for this. But what happens during transport from the pharmaceutical manufacturer to the end user? In order to monitor the temperatures during the delivery routes, manufacturers could use a new RFID technology in the future. If the temperature rises unexpectedly during refrigerated transport, the intelligent chip immediately registers the fluctuation and reports it to the reader.
The principle of protecting a sensitive product with a so-called barrier material is not only used in the food industry. In the pharmaceutical sector, too, the drugs produced must have a long shelf life. And in the technological field of photovoltaics or organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), the principle "Protect against moisture!" applied, because pixel errors reduce the energy yield of the solar cells or literally cloud the viewing experience on OLED screens. While food packaging allows around 1 g of water vapor to slip through a film area of one square meter every day (experts say “permeate”), the barrier films in OLED production may only be permeable to a millionth of this, i.e. 1 - 10 µg H2O. Researchers around the world are working on developing films with such an ultra-barrier effect.
Up to now, "intelligent labels" can only be found in retail stores on the packaging of high-quality razor blades and expensive perfumes, where they complement the barcode. In the future, these high-tech chips with metal antennas ("RFID tags") will possibly be applied to all packaging in retail stores and could even completely replace the barcode. The decisive innovation is: The RFID tags can be read without contact by radio using special readers, which changes the anti-theft protection, cashing out and the system of reordering in the shops. The abbreviation RFID stands for: Radio Frequency Identification.
According to CLAUSEN et al. the conclusion that the significantly lower tenderness of meat in the presence of oxygen is due to delayed proteolysis, which occurs as meat ripening, in connection with protein oxidation. In addition, the cooked samples from packaging with higher oxygen concentrations lacked a pink cut even at low core temperatures of only 62 ° C, which is often desired as “medium” cooked, especially when preparing steaks. Rather, the cut looked gray and as though it had been cooked through, with the outside also appearing to be roasted darker compared to the identically heated control samples. In contrast, in the case of samples packed under nitrogen, no changes whatsoever compared to vacuum-packed samples were measurable. Steaks that had been vacuum-packed for 20 days exhibited less tenderness than 18 days identical under pure nitrogen and then samples even stored in air for the remaining two days.
As part funded by the Industrial Research Foundation project "RFID-specific Extended Performance Analysis for the global assessment of RFID investments" the International Performance Research Institute has, inter alia, an Internet-based case study database constructed. The aim of this database is to document applications of RFID technology in companies and provide experience. In addition, information is provided about the technology itself, to organizations and suppliers of RFID and research projects, which deal with the subject.