In the food industry, cold chain monitoring is a critical aspect to guaranteeing food safety. Any break in the chain can lead to food waste, disease risks, and non-compliance with standard regulations. Yet 91 percent of full-service restaurants have no food safety management system (FDA’s Food Code).
Today, the LoRaWAN technology makes it possible to monitor and control food storage at every stage of the cold chain.
LoRaWAN is a Low Power, Wide Area Networking (LPWAN) protocol. It enables wireless communication for IoT devices over large distances with minimal battery usage. As LoRaWAN is easy, secure, and effective for large-scale deployment, the technology is an ideal IoT solution for cold chain monitoring.
An early partnership
ComplianceMate, the world’s leading provider of food safety management systems, was the first company to implement a LoRaWAN solution for food storage temperature monitoring. This IoT solution penetrates stainless steel doors, concrete walls, and even multiple stories while increasing battery efficiency with sensors that can last for years on standard batteries.
In February 2018, ComplianceMate’s LoRaWAN alert system enabled store management to be alerted of a power outage in downtown Nashville and immediately transported the high-risk products to another facility, saving between $35,000 and $50,000 in inventory.
A multi-faceted tool
LoRaWAN is suitable for several use cases in the food industry with wireless sensors for temperature, humidity, localization, vermin, pressure changes, and much more. Because these sensors can be configured to transmit data only when necessary, they are extremely energy efficient and can last for years with standard batteries.
A LoRaWAN gateway then receives data from, and sends data to, these wireless sensors. A single gateway can serve thousands of sensors over a large distance (up to 10km outdoor) in demanding cold chain environments.
With a combination of wireless sensors, gateways and a LoRaWAN network (public or private), it is possible to create a simple, secure, and inexpensive plug-and-play system that can cover multiple cold chain locations. The LoRaWAN network can be integrated with the application of your choice, which allows any food service employee to easily monitor and use the data.
If you want to know more about cold chain monitoring using LoRaWAN and meet the industry leaders like Laird Connectivity, join over 2000 leaders in IoT at the world’s largest LoRaWAN event of the year January 30-31 in Amsterdam.