4. Conclusions
A RFID smart tag including temperature and relative humidity
sensing capabilities was developed for food traceability and cold
chain monitoring purposes. The system was demonstrated and validated
along an intercontinental fresh fish logistic chain.
The smart tag developed in this work presents important
advantages regarding these conventional tools. The main one is
that this is an automated system that integrates online traceability
data and chill chain conditions monitoring. Moreover, a key aspect
of this RFID system is the fact that the data can be read-out at any
time of the logistic chain without opening the polystyrene boxes
containing the fish and the tags. Many tags can be read at the same
time as they pass through a reader in a fully automated way. Furthermore,
the tag price in high added value products, as the case
presented here, is affordable since there would be only one tag
per box. These developed RFID tags can also measure and resist
temperatures below 0 C, so they can be very useful to monitor frozen
foods logistic chains. The integration of a humidity sensor
makes the system specially sensitive to changes in the storage
conditions.