FDA selects winners for low- or no-cost food traceability challenge

The Food and Drug Administration has announced the 12 winners of the FDA New Era of Smarter Food Safety Low- or No-Cost Tech-Enabled Traceability Challenge. 

From the time the challenge was launched on June 1 until the submission window closed on July 30, the FDA said there were 90 submissions. The winning teams represented the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand.

Submitting teams also hailed from Australia, China, England, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, and Taiwan,

The agency said a goal of the FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety initiative is to help achieve end-to-end traceability – from source to table – throughout the food safety system. Tapping into new technologies and integrating data streams will help to advance the widespread, consistent implementation of traceability systems across the food industry, the FDA said.

However, the FDA said the affordability of such technologies, particularly for smaller companies, can be a barrier to adopting tech-enabled traceability systems. To achieve end-to-end food traceability, accessible tracing solutions are needed.

The primary goal of the traceability challenge, the FDA said, has been to encourage stakeholders, including technology providers, public health advocates, entrepreneurs, and innovators from all disciplines to develop traceability hardware, software, or data analytics platforms that are low-cost or no-cost to the end user. 

The winners

The FDA provided a brief summary of top performing teams/solutions:

• FarmTabs is free, downloadable software run on Microsoft Excel that helps small and mid-size farmers manage records for traceability and other farm-related metrics.
• Freshly is traceability and batch tracking software designed for small businesses, including retailers, manufacturers, and distributors. 
• HeavyConnect provides cloud-based digital traceability and compliance documentation solutions, including an intuitive mobile app that allows producers to capture traceability data in the field and seamlessly share it across the supply chain.
• ItemChain provides item-level traceability to each participant in the food supply chain, from source to store and from farm to fork, using Avery Dennison systems and proprietary blockchain technology using Mastercard Provenance. 
• Kezzler uses self-service portals to generate item-level identifiers and associate homogenized datasets at the grower level through simple mobile applications. 
• Mojix uses industry standards to link together traceability events for each individual item and/or lot throughout the food supply chain to enable a low-cost and collaborative open data network. 
• OpsSmart provides an industry-proven, cloud-based traceability software solution to meet food safety, recall management, and traceability needs of a complex supply chain. 
• Precise’s Traceability Suite delivers efficient end-to-end supply chain tracking to all segments of the food market by utilizing geospatial, machine learning and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. 
• Roambee/GSM/Wiliot’s solution uses low-cost IoT sensor tags in combination with shipment visibility and verification technologies to provide end-to-end traceability from farm to plate. 
• Rfider is software-as-a-service that simplifies capturing, securing, and sharing critical event data along supply chains all the way to consumers. 
• TagOne uses a role-based data capture framework that updates an open source blockchain platform, leverages industry standards to ensure interoperability, and ensures ease of use and data security.
• Wholechain is a supply chain traceability system that utilizes blockchain technology, in collaboration with Mastercard, to trace products back to their original source. 

Learn more about the winners and watch the videos they submitted on FDA’s Food Traceability Challenge page.

The FDA is hosting a web seminar on the Low- or No-Cost Tech-Enabled Traceability Challenge on Tuesday, Sept. 28 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Eastern.

 The 12 winning teams will present their solutions and take questions during a live Q&A session, according to the release.