Members of the Swedish seafood industry say that a five-day pilot project they recently completed proves the effectiveness of employing RFID to track fish from the fishing boat to the store, thereby ensuring a faster, more visible supply chain. The project is part of the eTrace portion of the European Union's SafeFoodEra food-safety research program. The eTrace initiative is the only part of the program that focuses on the use of RFID technology to gain visibility in a variety of food supply chains throughout Europe. The pilot tracked cod from the fishing boat to the processing plant, wholesaler and store, using Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) software.
Although the project's primary goal was to determine whether EPCGen 2 RFID hardware and EPCIS-compliant software could be utilized to track fish, the most dramatic result was seen in the public response. By placing a map and a schedule depicting each fish's journey from boat to store, including dates and times, above the store shelf where the fish was displayed, daily sales of cod at that store went up from a few kilos (2.3 to 6.6 pounds) to more than 150 kilos (330 pounds).
