Perishables tracking

DeltaTrak has patented its cold chain tracking technology, the FlashTrak Global Chain of Custody (CoC) information management system it introduced in November 2022.

FlashTrak CoC expands the functionality of DeltaTrak’s FlashTrak platform to provide detailed supply chain traceability, helping identify all entities associated with an order, predict product quality, trace shipment information, and confirm compliance with government regulations.

The journey of perishable goods from the growing environment or laboratory to consumers is critical to prevent spoilage, reduce waste and ensure product safety, yet legacy systems mean no single entity has comprehensive data on the entire journey of a perishable good. Historically, a user needing CoC information would spend considerable time and energy logging on to different, often redundant applications to piecemeal information.

Developed to utilize data captured by Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Application Programming Interface (API), FlashTrak CoC is a cloud-based platform that serves as a single repository ecosystem of information. Built on the Dapicon ecosystem, which houses data contributions from buyers, sellers, marine traffic companies, real-time temperature tracker providers, third-party logistics companies, and government agencies, FlashTrak CoC aggregates contributions from consortium partners to provide visibility into the supply chain and yield complete transparency.

It provides end-to-end product traceability using industry standard GS1 standards– from the source to the store and every movement in between, on any mode of transport. It can track international shipments using key identifiers like booking numbers, master bills of lading, purchase orders, invoices, etc.. and automates collection of international shipping documents.

The system manages and maintains required regulatory compliance documents, and proves an automated digital claims service.

“This kind of critical business information is traditionally found in separate, disparate systems making it difficult, expensive and time consuming to gather and analyze all the data required to make smart distribution decisions,” said Fred Wu, DeltaTrak founder and CEO.

“Our patented CoC platform gives users access to key outputs needed to make smarter and faster decisions, helping reduce operational costs, protect product quality and even perform precision recalls due to enhanced traceability of problem origin.”

FlashTrak also addresses sustainability by continuously monitoring the status of the products in transit.  In the United States, food loss and waste results in 170 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, excluding the emissions from wasted food sent to landfills. Approximately 12 percent of food waste occurs during the distribution process, mainly because of improper refrigeration.

“Temperature control during the movement of perishable goods is paramount to ensure shelf life and food safety,” said Wu, who noted that pharmaceutical products face the same challenge.

“FlashTrak CoC is the only patented ecosystem platform that integrates both the IoT quality data of the product and the transactional commercial data to provide full supply chain traceability of where and what is the condition of your cargo in real time.”