Jan/Feb 2006

Samworth Brothers, the company behind the Ginsters food brand, has equipped 100 vehicles with an RFID-based temperature monitoring system called SecureTemp from Secureseal to help meet customers' requirements and demonstrate legislative compliance in food transport.

Whilst other systems already exist to monitor the temperature inside bodywork or trailers, and inform the driver if it shifts out of the acceptable range, these mostly rely on an electrical cable connection between body or trailer and the driver's cab.

The newly-developed Secureseal instead harnesses radio frequency identification technology, which is more usually used for tracking goods, but also has the potential to transmit other information over a short range in real time.

A unit mounted in the cab shows the temperature on an LED display, and sounds an audible warning if the temperature moves out of range.

 

Currently the warning operates locally within the confines of each vehicle, but Secureseal says it is also developing a system in which the trailer identity and temperature information can be transmitted back to base, alerting control staff there to any issues. This could be done with GPRS or other established means.