Today, technology is at the crux of the success of every industry, and the supply chain industry is no exception. It is revolutionizing how perishable food is delivered, ensuring fresh products reach consumers with minimal waste and maximum efficiency. Advanced tools enhance visibility and control through the entire supply chain process from “farm to table.” In this blog, we will look at the significant role of technology in enhancing perishable food delivery.
With the introduction of supply chain management, the perishable food industry has experienced significant growth. However, the nature of the product makes the perishable food industry susceptible to multiple challenges. As a business owner in the perishable food industry, you must ensure that the product is of good quality. Along with ensuring quality, you must avoid losses from food spoilage. The perishable food supply chain in your company should be such that it ensures the best quality with minimum loss.
Technology plays a crucial role in maintaining quality in the perishable food industry. You can use certain technologies to ensure minimum food waste, better performance, and an increase in the company’s overall profit. The perishable food industry is prone to food waste, a global problem. Technologies can help reduce these food wastes by monitoring for damages or sudden temperature changes. When you implement these technologies, you improve the quality of food delivered. This improvement leads to enhanced customer satisfaction and more revenue for the company
Use Sustainable Farming Practices
Considering the current environmental challenges, sustainable farming is a major factor in the perishable food supply chain. These practices build resilient farming and give a much-needed boost to the ecosystem.
Some of the key practices of sustainable farming include the following:
• Agroecology: In this way of farming, the ecosystem plays a guiding role. Other key factors are natural pest control, managing soil sustainably, and improving biodiversity. These practices reduce the use of harmful chemicals in farming, and the products become more viable in the food supply chain.
• Circular Agriculture: In this method, a closed-loop system is created. All organic matter is recycled, ensuring optimum water usage and reducing the involvement of external factors. This farming method is efficient economically and sustainable environmentally.
• Precision Agriculture: As the name suggests, this method is all about being methodical. It uses sensors and drone technologies to monitor the crop. The process of irrigation and fertilization of crops is done with precision. This process is efficient with minimal impact on the environment.
• Vertical Farming: As less and less land is available for farming, this method is the solution as it limits land use. The water consumption is minimal, and the production is carried out throughout the year. This production is achieved as crops are stacked vertically indoors where the environment can be controlled.
Use Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Another way of improving supply chain management in the perishable food industry is through predictive analytics. It uses machine learning, data, modeling, and statistics to predict future trends. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can gather this information to predict risks, outcomes, and opportunities accurately. You can leverage AI to understand which products are popular among customers and which are not to tweak your production volume accordingly. For example, suppose you are planning to introduce a new product in the market. In that case, you can use AI to predict customer responses based on historical data. Accordingly, you can make changes to the new product to better suit the customer’s requirements. AI also plays a crucial role in machine maintenance. Suppose you input data about the current health of a machine. In that case, it can predict when the machine will fail so that you can arrange maintenance accordingly. This improves the efficiency of the machine and is called predictive maintenance. This predictive maintenance plays a crucial role in increasing cost efficiency and decreasing the risk of machine breakdown and its associated expenses.
Implement New Blockchain Technologies
Customers prefer to know all about the source and other related details when consuming food. As a business owner, you should invest in technologies that give your customers visibility and transparency and ensure food safety. In the current environment where pesticides and chemicals are rampant in foods, customers need information about how safe your food is and the long-term effect of the food on the environment. This is where blockchain technology steps in and ensures end-to-end product visibility throughout its lifecycle. It allows you to share all information transparently with your customers.
Implementing blockchain technologies shows visibility, transparency, and honesty to your customers. Suppose the customers are convinced about the sustainability and quality of your product. In that case, they can choose your products over the competitors, ultimately increasing your profit. Additionally, blockchain technologies help you monitor the production process, enabling you to make changes wherever required. These changes will increase efficiency, speed up the workflow, and be cost-effective.
Invest in Internet of Things (IoT)
With rising concern about food safety and the perishable food industry being at the forefront of that scrutiny, business owners are now investing in the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT are objects embedded with software, sensors, and other technologies. The purpose is to connect these objects and exchange data between them. Incorporating IoT in the perishable food industry has become essential as its contribution has slowly become invaluable. With current water shortages, new diseases, and global climate changes, IoT is helping farmers save their crops and increase quality harvests.
When farming, you can place sensors in various areas of the field to monitor critical factors such as temperature, soil pH, and soil moisture. You can also place sensor cameras to monitor different factors in a field.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an example of IoT, and it uses GPS and tags to enable companies to track every aspect of their supply chain management. It helps to monitor customer trends, stop wasteful production, and improve the overall efficiency of product manufacture.
Improve Efficiency Through Automation and Robotics
Robotics have changed the face of the perishable food industry in recent times. It has sped up repetitive processes such as processing, sorting, packing, and storing. Although cost reduction is a major benefit of introducing robotics, another important benefit is improved tracking, resulting in better quality control. Since robotics is based on precision, ensuring the same quality consistently is not that challenging anymore. However, companies cannot remove manual intervention as these robotic technologies require supervision to ensure quality control. The right balance of robotics and manual intervention can ensure optimum quality, efficiency, and cost savings.
Conclusion:
With the current global environment, conditions such as water shortage, new diseases, and inflation can significantly impact the perishable food industry. Investing and implementing the correct technologies will help businesses combat these adverse conditions and grow organically. However, it is important to research and ensure that you select the correct mix of technology for your business. Be it IoT, blockchain technologies, or AI, the correct technology can help you grow and maintain the quality of perishable goods.
About XPDEL:
XPDEL helps eCommerce brands accelerate their growth, empowering them with multi-channel fulfillment, whether shipping directly to consumers, delivering to businesses, or selling through retail stores. We are founded and operated by veterans with experience from Amazon, FedEx, UPS, JDA, Walmart, Target, and other leading companies in eCommerce and Retail. Guided by these experts, we provide customer experiences that help you grow your business.
