4. Retailer Puts Focus on Freshness

In recent years, supermarket chains across the country have been stocking more fresh foods as consumer interest has increased. To ensure freshness, Albertson's LLC has always been vigilant with monitoring the temperature on all inbound produce, fresh meat and seafood shipments to its distribution centers.

"Providing our customers safe, high quality products is our highest priority. We have always monitored the temperatures of our perishable products during shipping," says Dave Dean, group vice president of procurement for the Boise, Idaho-based chain. "But we found that traditional temperature monitoring devices were bulky and expensive."

So the company turned to the PakSense TXi Smart Label provided by Pak Sense Inc., also based in Boise. The labels track the temperature of a perishable product's environment during distribution and enable quality assurance personnel to make better quality and safety decisions.

A flat, 2-in. x 2-in. disk, PakSense labels are sealed in food-grade packaging. Lights on the sensor alert quality assurance personnel if temperature specs have been breached and all data collected by the label can be downloaded and graphed. This enables Albertson's to pinpoint when and for how long temperature excursions occurred. The labels are intended for one-time use.

"We are embracing new technology so we can be at the forefront of food quality and safety," says Dean. "We can sample temperatures through a trailer, not just on the top. We view this as another tool to ensure our customers receive the freshest products available

Back to Case study >>