At present, food and drug safety has become a topic of great concern in China. An important reason for the frequent occurrence of food and drug safety incidents is that science and technology have not played a sufficient role, specifically shown in: lagging standardization of food and drug safety management; low inspection and testing levels; incomplete technical means to prevent and stop counterfeiting; and low recall efficiency for problem food and drugs.
In recent years, with the development of computer and network technology, RFID technology has provided a method for uniquely identifying items and has become an effective technical means of item management. Applying RFID technology to food and drug safety management, combined with corresponding back-end information systems, can achieve positioning and tracking of items and accomplish the goal of food and drug safety management.
Ways of applying RFID technology to food and drug safety management
In implementation, there are two ways to track information across the entire food and drug supply chain: one is tracking from upstream to downstream, called Tracking or Trace Forward, mainly used to find the cause of quality problems and determine the product's origin and characteristics; the other is tracing from downstream back upstream, called Tracing or Trace Back, i.e., when consumers discover a safety problem with food or drugs purchased at the sales stage, they can trace back level by level to ultimately identify where the problem lies, mainly used for recalling problem products.
To apply RFID technology to food and drug safety management, the first step is to establish complete and accurate food and drug supply chain information records - that is, to effectively identify and record product and attribute information, participant information, and so on throughout the food and drug supply chain. At each processing point in the supply chain, it is necessary not only to identify the products processed there, but also to collect existing identification information on the food and drug raw materials processed, and mark all that information on the finished product for use by the next processor or consumer.
In the production stage, producers store the product name, variety, place of origin, batch, producer information, and other necessary content in RFID labels, recording initial product information and the production process.
In the processing stage, RFID label information is used to sort products; only products meeting processing conditions are allowed into the next processing step. For products entering processing, the information recorded in RFID labels enables targeted handling of different products. After processing, processor information, processing method, processing date, product grade, shelf life, storage conditions, and other content are added to the label. In the transportation and warehousing stage, RFID labels and fixed readers installed along the route track the transport vehicle route and travel time. Fixed readers are installed at warehouse entrances and exits to automatically record product inbound and outbound; information recorded in labels helps determine the suitable storage time; at outbound, products are selected for priority dispatch based on storage time; rapid inventory counting is also possible, helping managers keep abreast of inventory status at any time.
In the sales stage, merchants or hospitals use RFID labels to understand the condition of purchased products and implement admission management. At checkout, RFID labels enable fast checkout. Merchants or hospitals can write their company name, sales time, salesperson, and other information into the label to confirm the product when customers return goods or products are recalled.
Since information from production, processing, transportation, storage, sales, and other stages is all stored in the RFID label, if a product has a problem, the entire process can be traced to determine the stage where the problem occurred and the scope of problem products. Consumers can also use RFID labels to confirm whether purchased products have problems and whether they fall within a recall.
In addition, while information is added to RFID labels, it can also be transmitted to a public database, so consumers or purchasing organizations can compare label contents with database records to effectively identify counterfeit products.
Thus, the application of RFID technology can achieve food and drug safety management based on supply chain coverage.
Full-process data recording and reliable links between data and objects ensure that the source of food and drugs is clear and traceable to the raw material origin, as well as to all stages of production, processing, and logistics.
Safety management goals: "source" traceability of food and drug safety and transparent management of the food and drug supply chain. At the same time, to meet the work requirements of food and drug regulatory authorities, the government should lead the construction of a food and drug regulatory platform, enabling information access and sharing among related enterprises and departments at all supply chain stages, and achieving end-to-end supervision from production source to sales.
Risks of applying RFID to food and drug safety management
1. Lack of unified standards
At present, countries around the world have formulated multiple RFID standards, but there is no unified international standard. If the coding systems used by RFID labels are inconsistent, or the frequency bands used across the supply chain are inconsistent, information reading/writing, querying, tracking, and tracing will be inconvenient, and the convenience brought by RFID technology may even fail to materialize. To some extent, the lack of unified standards for RFID application can easily create barriers to trade between regions and make food and drug safety standards uneven in the market, weakening consumers' ability to judge food and drug safety and leading to distrust of food and drugs identified with RFID technology.
2. Relatively high cost
Supply chain participants need to purchase RFID-related equipment and build system infrastructure. For some small and medium-sized enterprises, this is a huge expense, which hinders large-scale RFID application. At present, RFID can first be used on high-value-added products; for low-value-added products, it can be used after packing, on a per-box basis.
3. Benefit distribution
On the one hand, RFID application increases investment costs for related equipment; on the other hand, RFID application can improve efficiency in logistics and transportation and increase product prices at the sales stage, thereby generating revenue. Therefore, how upstream production and processing manufacturers, midstream transportation and warehousing enterprises, and downstream sales terminals - all supply chain participants - share costs and distribute benefits will be one of the main concerns for enterprises applying RFID technology.
4. Information integrity risk
The core of a food and drug safety traceability system is the database. If an integrity crisis occurs at any stage of the supply chain - for example, if individual supply chain participants pass off inferior goods as superior or fake goods as genuine - then the data recorded by RFID labels becomes meaningless.
5. Data security and privacy protection
Data security and privacy protection are also issues that need to be resolved in application. Applications must prevent unauthorized reading and writing of RFID label contents to ensure data security. Encryption technology can be used to encrypt RFID label contents, so that only authorized users can read and write RFID label contents.
Current status of RFID application in food and drug safety management
At present, some countries have applied RFID technology to food and drug supervision with good results. For example, the EU food traceability system is mainly used in beef production and circulation, maintaining transparency in production and supervision and complete, detailed individual product information. Australia has established a livestock identification and traceability system (NLIS), mainly for cattle and sheep farming; cattle enrolled in NLIS must use uniform electronic ear tags, and sheep use uniform plastic ear tags. Japan has established a food identification system since 2001, namely the agricultural product history system, to track agricultural product production and sales.
Purdue Pharma in the United States has successfully integrated RFID label operations into the production line for single-bottle packaging, affixing RFID labels to OxyContin (an anesthetic painkiller) packaging bottles to track and monitor their distribution. In addition, Pfizer has a similar application for its Viagra products. The United States has also enacted e-pedigree regulations for tracking and tracing drugs using RFID technology.
In China's Ministry of Agriculture 948 Project "Livestock Product Quality and Safety Traceability System", RFID technology is applied to the entire livestock food production process, including breeding, epidemic prevention and sterilization, product processing, and food circulation, comprehensively introducing standardized technical procedures and quality supervision measures and establishing a "farm to table" food supply chain tracking and tracing system. At the end of September 2006, the first batch of "Golden Card Pigs" with RFID tags went on sale in Chengdu. In February 2007, China completed the establishment of a full-process quality and safety traceability system for beef cattle production. At present, the application of full-process quality and safety traceability for pigs and beef cattle based on RFID has been completed.
In 2006, Shanghai carried out a pilot project for a "Drug RFID Supply Chain Information Platform". The main goals were to establish an electronic label monitoring platform and realize RFID application in the circulation of special drugs. The platform effectively improved supervision, achieving full coverage of supervision work; maximized prevention of counterfeiting; and enhanced incident handling capability.
In addition, some large domestic pharmaceutical companies are also considering introducing RFID technology.
Overall, there are currently very few examples in China of applying RFID technology for automatic traceability across the entire food and drug production process, and a fully trackable supply chain in the food and drug industry has not yet taken shape.
Countermeasures for RFID technology in food and drug development
The National Food and Drug Safety "11th Five-Year Plan" for safety management application explicitly proposes: strengthen food and drug supervision facilities, improve the technical standards system, vigorously improve testing technology, and enhance supervision capacity and level. Implement an electronic label management system in food and drug safety supervision.
The development of RFID technology provides a good foundational environment for its application in food and drug safety management. Food and drug safety is a public safety issue affecting social harmony and stability; therefore, RFID application requires strong coordination and overall planning among government, industry, enterprises, and research institutions, leveraging government power to guide the market and maximize rational resource allocation and complementary advantages. Specific measures are as follows:
1. Establish unified coding standards
The government can take the lead, organizing industry associations in cooperation with relevant national ministries and commissions to formulate industry standards and specifications as soon as possible and establish a unified food and drug safety management coding system. In addition, the establishment of industry associations will help strengthen connections among all stages of the food and drug supply chain, ensuring the completeness and consistency of entered information.
2. Promote research on key RFID technologies
RFID label costs and application solutions for RFID technology in different types of food and drug supply chains are key technologies urgently needing breakthroughs. The government can support expanding the scale of application projects in terms of technology, talent, funding, or policy, and promote the R&D and production of various RFID technologies and related products.
3. Launch application demonstrations
The establishment of a full-process quality and safety traceability system for pigs and beef cattle in China indicates that China has certain strength in full-process quality and safety traceability management of meat food. The government should actively promote the implementation and application of these project results, providing successful examples for enterprises at all stages of the supply chain and eliminating their concerns.
4. Build application platforms
China's food and drug safety management urgently needs a well-established intermediate application service platform. Such a platform should be led by the government, with relevant ministries and leading industry enterprises jointly building it, using the government credibility to address possible integrity crises in RFID application.
At present, the government's leading role in applying RFID technology to food and drug safety management will continue, but government efforts alone are not enough. Strong coordination and overall planning among government, industry, enterprises, and research institutions are also needed, making full use of market forces to mature RFID application in food and drug safety management.