Application of RFID technologies in the temperature mapping of the pineapple supply chain

Current temperature tracking systems lack the convenience and accuracy demanded by the real conditions of a fast-paced produce supply chain. In recent years RFID technology has been suggested to be an enhanced method for temperature tracking because of its many benefits, such as using little instrumentation, offering the quick readings necessary for real-time decision making, and allowing the capture of long-duration temperature profiles. However its limitation lies in that probeless systems fail to provide accurate temperature readings in some of the critical points of the pallet and the load. The objective of this work was to study the use of RFID in temperature monitoring by comparing the performance of RFID temperature tags versus conventional temperature tracking methods, as well as RFID temperature tags with probe versus RFID temperature tags without probes and their utilization along the supply chain. Therefore, the temperature mapping of a shipping trial comprising pallets of crownless pineapples instrumented using different RFID temperature dataloggers and traditional temperature dataloggers and packed in two kinds of packages (corrugated boxes and reusable plastic containers) inside a container was performed. The results showed that RFID temperature tags are analogous with regards to accuracy to the conventional methods, but have a superior performance because they allow quick instrumentation and data recovery, and the possibility of accessing the sensor program and data at any point of the supply chain without line of sight. In addition, the use of RFID tags with probe was justified by its role in determining the efficiency of the pre-cooling operations and low temperature abuse tracking during transportation and refrigerated storage; while the RFID tags without probe proved useful for high temperature abuse monitoring during transportation and refrigerated storage. The creation of a RFID sensor with a probe, able to record both ambient and pulp temperatures simultaneously is suggested.