Food waste is not just a local, State or regional problem. With over a third of global food production wasted every year, Companies and governments around the world are working to solve this challenge. Optimizing the supply chain can be an effective strategy to reduce expired food, while extending the lifespan of your products.
To help you reduce food waste in the supply chain, Let's take a look at temperature regulation – An important contributor to food waste.
-and five key steps you can take to improve your temperature monitoring processes.
Temperature: A key issue
in the food waste supply chain
When food is not stored at optimum temperatures, their quality gradually degrades until they finally spoil. Improper temperature affects all perishable products- Even canned food is vulnerable to poor temperature regulation. Even when food has not deteriorated, Improper temperatures can damage the shelf life and quality of your product.
Temperature control during transportation is not the only cause of deterioration. Gaps in the supply chain can lead to products remaining on docks, in warehouses or cold stores much more than they should be. Conditions, whether too hot or too cold, can lead directly to quality degradation and waste. Products such as, flowers, ice creams, Meat and seafood are particularly affected.
For over 30 years, Sensitech is dedicated to helping growers, producers and suppliers to optimise their cold chain and prevent food waste. Providing visibility into supply chains with our IoT devices, You can identify gaps in the cold chain and intervene in real time.
Temperature monitoring is just the beginning of our optimisation efforts. To get to the heart of this issue, We need to look at continuous improvements that will affect every step of the cold chain and prevent food waste.
5 Steps to reduce food waste in your supply chain
Every organization faces unique challenges when transporting and storing food. But everyone in the food supply chain can help reduce waste by looking inward and adopting these practices
1.Create and follow dynamic best practices
Establish guidelines and procedures for each product and ship at every stage of the supply chain. Then, distribute this information to everyone who needs it: in warehouses, shipping companies and retail outlets. Prioritize clear and concise communication of these best practices across your company and facilities.
Best practices include a wide range of details, from the right storage temperatures to how to properly load your products onto vehicles and transport ships. Continuously improve and improve your practices, regularly identifying risk segments during shipment on every journey your products take, From the point of origin to the point of purchase.
Identify each step along the supply chain and investigate where and why challenges are more likely to occur (especially those related to temperature and humidity). Meet these challenges by first identifying a solution to the problem and then adjusting your guidelines and procedures to prevent the problem from occurring. Dynamic best practices that are regularly reassessed help you answer these questions today and tomorrow.
2.Optimisation of transport temperatures
Before you put anything in a refrigerated truck, It is important to measure the temperature of your products. Food must be loaded at a certain temperature and no product must touch the walls of the truck.
Companies also need to invest in refrigerated trucks and how well they keep products at temperature throughout the year.’ throughout the transport period. Apparently, Trailers with integrated cooling systems are essential, But careful placement of temperature monitors and cooling systems themselves is also necessary. The back of the truck is often the hardest place to maintain temperature, So having a screen there can alert the team in case the truck's conditions fluctuate.
Keeping trailers and cooling systems in good condition through regular monitoring and maintenance will ensure your transport vehicles don't have problems. If you do not do this, You may see a small issue swell into a major problem that leads to costly and unnecessary food waste.
3. Storage optimization
Warehousing is also another key aspect of the supply chain. When storing food, it is important to mitigate the exposure of the product to ambient air temperatures. Unloading the truck should be done quickly to minimize temperature damage.
However, Warehouses must also be managed to ensure that they can keep products at the right temperature. Thermal mapping can be used to help teams identify which areas of a warehouse are at risk of temperature fluctuations. Monitors should be placed in the coldest and hottest areas of each storage facility. Teams should also conduct tests to see the impact an open door or power outage has on the temperature of a warehouse or storage facility.
4. Leverage Analytics for continuous improvements
Cold chain management is not a situation “put it on and forget it”. Your policies and procedures should be regularly evaluated and updated, to ensure your methods are optimal. This is the only way to accurately and smoothly identify and eliminate new risks to your products.
The Internet of Things provides an almost endless array of temperature monitoring and data recording devices, and with them you can leverage your analytics to make assessing and updating your transfer processes as easy as possible. For example, Advanced data analysis metrics can determine what a product's temperature will be upon arrival based on several factors:.
Analytics turn question marks into answers and illuminate your blind spots. You can collect data from warehouses, storage facilities also during transit;. Then, you can gather
This data together, creating a clear picture of your supply chain in real time.
Extra, Your team can work with experts to determine best practices for saving money in your company, while reducing waste. At Sensitech, Each client is assigned a program manager, which can help companies interpret data or run scripts “what-if”. With decades of experience, Our team can help you streamline your data shipping process, to reduce waste while optimising the supply chain.
5. Identification of weak points
An ongoing task for everyone in the food supply chain is to find out where things are going wrong. What makes it difficult is to identify specific causes. In some cases, Multiple factors may contribute to the same problem, and solving one can lead to a cataract of
Additional surveys and optimizations.
With a real-time temperature combination, analytics and humidity monitoring, You can identify where and when the cold chain is interrupted and take action to prevent food waste in the future.
Food waste doesn't just affect your end result. Disrupts your production schedule, leaving you struggling to replace wasted products. In case of alteration or revocation, can make consumers sick and cause potentially irreversible damage to your business, but by adopting effective waste reduction strategies, You can boost your sustainability and credibility, creating a more harmonious future for business and community.
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SOURCE: Sensitech