Periodic Reporting for period 1 - COLDTRACK (New cloud-base SW for ensuring the Cold Chain during Food Transportation)
Reporting period: 2017-06-01 to 2017-08-31
Improper management of the supply chain causes over 88 million tons of annual food waste in Europe generating costs of €143 billion. According to the WHO, 30% of the population in industrialized countries suffers from foodborne diseases killing about 2.2 million people annually. Good traceability systems allowing agile management of the food supply chain will help to minimize the production and distribution of unsafe products. Moreover, the EU food labelling rules enforce more restrictive measures to control the cold chain and the food composition through more robust traceability check systems. Zuffellato Computers has 40 years’ experience developing IT traceability solutions in the food sector. Now our objective is to elevate our current product to the next level by the implementation of RFID technology as hardware, and a Big Data supporting online platform as software to generate COLDTRACK platform to provide agile supply chain management across the whole food supply chain from farm to fork.
The Feasibility Study performed has focused on 3 main areas. From a technical point of view, we have validated the introduction of RFID technology, selected a potential partner to do so and prepared the pilot tests with end users in the meat sector to guide the technical product enhancement and to act as references for future commercialization.We have alsio updated the regulatory framework to fulfil. Commercially, we have performed a throughout analysis of our target market, including the competitors landscape and ensuring the suitability of BUGIN and GAVAZZA as commercial partners to define a plan to consolidate our commercial strategy. Moreover, we have performed an exhaustive FTO analysis to confirm our freedom to uptake the market. On the economic side, we have defined the most suitable business models to sell ColdTrack (SaaS and standalone software) and performed a 5 years forecast projection.
The main challenge facing traceability systems for food supply chains is the difficulty of information exchange between the links, making the whole process slow and not agile. ColdTrack collects and analyses all information across the whole supply chain in real time enabling agile management of supply chain problems. Therefore it might help to reduce food waste, spoilage and recall situations. With ColdTrack, food industry companies will reduce their costs by 12-15% through cumulative savings in rejections (6-8%), transportation (4-5%) and management (2%).