Success of EPCIS pilot in Sweden

June 23, 2010 - eTrace, a project within the European Union's SafeFoodEra food-safety research program, conducted a traceability pilot in Sweden last month, to find out if the EPCIS standard is suitable to trace food in a food supply chain. The successful pilot proved various benefits of EPCIS-based systems.

The pilot represented a joint effort between SINTEF Fisheries and aquaculture(NO), TraceTracker (NO), Lund University (SE), Matis (IS) and The Swedish Board of Fishery (SE). The initial scope was to track fish all the way from fishing boats in Simrishamn, through the supply chain to a retailer in Gothenburg, Sweden.

"The results have been positive on all sides," commented Niklas Hild, the Project Manager. "The participating supply chain partners could see the direct value of having traceability. An open, automatic system like this gives everyone all the information needed on the screen, thereby avoiding manual data gathering."

EPCIS proved to be a viable standard enabling compliance with European regulations on food safety.  “The Swedish Board of Fisheries sees the EPCIS-standard and RFID- technology as a potential tool to meet the upcoming demands of the new control regulation,(EG) nr 1224/2009 in EU. This regulation states that all member states must have traceability in the fish supply chains. Also, it seems to be a great tool in fisheries control." said Mårten Gustafsson, the Swedish Board of Fisheries.

In addition, traceability information acted as a driver for increase sales.  "Instead of sellling just a few kilos a day, I sold more than 150 kilos over 4 days. This is a very significant increase for us." said Peter Kallstrom, owner of Fiskelyckan, a retailer in, Gothenburg.


More information
eTrace
SafeFoodEra Network
EPCIS Standard

NRK radio interview with Geir Myrold, Head of Nordic region at TraceTracker (in Norwegian)