Boost Food Supply Chain Visibility with Intelligent Food Industry Solutions
Impinj partner Avery Dennison uses the Impinj platform to enhance visibility and traceability of fresh food for processors and distributors.
Streamlining food supply chains with RAIN RFID
Consumers today are more conscious than ever about where their food comes from and how it reaches their plates. This places immense pressure on food processors and distributors to ensure raw food is processed, packaged, and transported quickly and safely. However, keeping food moving efficiently through the supply chain can be an immense challenge, often involving manual processes and fragmented data systems.
Avery Dennison’s Intelligent Food Solutions provide visibility and traceability throughout the food supply chain, harnessing the power of RAIN RFID and the Impinj platform to seamlessly track and record the journey of fresh food at critical checkpoints. Using a combination of RAIN RFID tags, readers, and software, Impinj partner Avery Dennison's solution delivers inventory visibility, operational efficiency, product traceability, food waste reduction, and more.
Automated, no-line-of-sight RAIN RFID reading solutions enable processors and distributors to quickly and accurately verify inbound and outbound shipments, improving visibility and reducing human error, waste, and disputes. This real-time inventory visibility empowers operators throughout the supply chain to pinpoint the origin of food items and swiftly remove them in the event of a recall, while also assuring grocers and restaurateurs that their orders will be accurate, on time — and at peak freshness.
Moving food at the speed of freshness
Here’s how the solution from Avery Dennison and Impinj works:
Farm-packed crates and pallets of fresh food (such as apples, potatoes, or eggs) are affixed with RAIN RFID tags embedded with tiny Impinj RAIN RFID tag chips. These tags, which cost just pennies apiece, each contain an identifier that points to information about the product stored in the cloud. This information can include harvest location, batch number, and date picked or gathered.
The food arrives at food processing and distribution facilities where it is sorted, processed, and re-packaged. New Impinj-based tags are applied to the new packages and cartons.
As the tagged items move through various stations within processing and distribution facilities, they are read by Impinj R700 series RAIN RFID readers located overhead, at entry and exit portals, or along conveyor belts. The readers read the tags wirelessly from a distance of up to 10 meters (30 feet) without the need for direct line-of-sight — even if the containers are densely packed.
Impinj R700 series RAIN RFID readers capture and deliver critical information — including shipment verification data, precise inventory counts, and product location — to Avery Dennison's inventory software. This data is then stored in atma.io, Avery Dennison's connected product cloud. The combined solution ensures accurate orders and complete shipments before they reach restaurants and grocery stores.
A smarter food supply chain with Impinj
Speed, efficiency, and accuracy are important in any industry, but especially in the food industry. Avery Dennison’s solution leverages RAIN RFID and the Impinj platform to ensure busy food processors and distributors can gather insight to speed up processes, drastically reduce human error, and gain full product traceability.
Benefits include:
Delivery verification in seconds
The Avery Dennison food solution's RAIN RFID capabilities allow items packed in crates and pallets to be read in seconds upon delivery, eliminating the need to scan barcodes one-by-one — and freeing staff to focus on other tasks.
Inventory accuracy through automation
Counting inventory by hand can be time-consuming and fraught with errors. Avery Dennison's Intelligent Food Solutions automatically confirm inventory in real time, so counts are always accurate, and when customers place an order, they know exactly what they’re receiving and when.
Full product traceability in case of a recall
When a food product's path is tracked and recorded at every step through the supply chain, it’s easier to quickly intervene if a recall occurs. An outbreak can be tracked down to package level, allowing for “surgical” removal of tainted food from the supply chain, and preventing expensive and over-reaching purges that clear store shelves for days.
Reduction in food waste
Access to supply chain data is key to preventing food waste. By leveraging product expiry data, processors and distributors can prioritize "first expired, first out" practices. The data-driven approach also enables food operators to be actionable in managing inventory — knowing when they need to order more to avoid out-of-stocks or order less to avoid over-ordering, resulting in food waste.
Avery Dennison and the Impinj Partner Network
Impinj partner Avery Dennison offers a collection of RFID logistics solutions serving an array of industries, including home and personal care, apparel, general retail, e-commerce, logistics, food and grocery, pharmaceuticals, and automotive. Avery Dennison is a member of the Impinj Partner Network, a program built to support partners around the world in delivering innovative IoT solutions powered by Impinj technology. Read more about how the Impinj platform can manage assets, verify shipments, and automate supply chains in industries such as retail, supply chain and logistics, and more.- Article tagged as:
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
ABOUT THE PARTNER
Avery Dennison
Avery Dennison Corporation (NYSE: AVY) is a global materials science and digital identification solutions company that provides branding and information labeling solutions, including radio-frequency identification (RFID) inlays
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Impinj products deliver connectivity for this solution
Tag Chips
Impinj RAIN RFID tag chips provide unique identifiers and enable smart, connected things (endpoints)
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Readers
Impinj RAIN RFID readers are smart edge devices that identify and locate connected things
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