Advanced monitoring solution to prevent losses and assure full transparency along the cold chain

Project Information

COOL-SENS

Grant agreement ID: 855554

DOI

10.3030/855554

Project closed

EC signature date 5 February 2019

Start date 1 March 2019

End date 31 July 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

ANSERLOG S.A.
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - COOL-SENS (Advanced monitoring solution to prevent losses and assure full transparency along the cold chain)

Reporting period: 2019-03-01 to 2019-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Many fresh food products (fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy, meat, frozen products…) and pharmaceuticals require continuous refrigeration during transport in order to guarantee their safety and quality and to preserve self-life. Therefore, not only is important to have a means of transport that can keep the products within a specific temperature range but also to control that those temperature conditions are maintained all along the way.
Current cold chain tracking and monitoring systems range from simple indicators that indicate through changes in colour if the product has been exposed to too much heat and should be discarded, to a wide spectrum of temperature data loggers with or without network connectivity. These systems are useful to detect breaks in the cold chain but are useless to prevent them.
In order to prevent product loses – and their consequential financial loses valued in 6,300M€ for the food sector and 35,000M€ for pharma - from happening, we have developed a personalised end-to-end traceability and tracking system: Cool-Sens. Thanks to the use of Blockchain technology, Cool-Sens ensures full data transparency and reliability, and offers 50% loss reduction which can go up to 95%.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the SME-Instrument Phase I (March-July 2019) we have conducted a feasibility study to analyse our project’s technical, commercial and financial viability.
Regarding technical viability, we have (i) studied hardware (HW) and software (SW) parameters and optimised them taking into account reliability test results and client feedback, as well as their best manufacturing options, (ii) analysed the applicable regulatory framework, (iii) assessed the best Blockchain implementation methodology, (iv) searched for the most appropriate system to reduce data transmission costs and (v) for the optimum telecommunications network provider.
From the commercial viability point of view, we have carried out an in-depth market study of the cold chain tracking and monitoring systems market, which includes an analysis of the market drivers and barriers and an examination of potential competitors. We have examined the needs of our target users, which mainly include temperature-sensitive food and pharma producers/manufacturers/traders. In addition, we have carried out a Porter’s 5 Forces analysis as well as a SWOT analysis. In addition, we have investigated potential risks that may arise during project implementation and designed mitigation measures for each of them.
Finally, in the financial assessment we have designed a pricing strategy for the Cool-Sens service, and we have integrated it into a business strategy, considering the knowledge we have obtained from the technical and commercial assessments. In addition, we have updated our financial projections in the light of what we have learnt from our assessments and we have elaborated a financial forecast for the 5 first commercialisation years.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Solutions in the market are focused on devices measuring quality parameters, sometimes including a digital platform that records and shows generic data collected. The main issue of these current alternatives is that these devices are useful to detect breaks in the cold chain but are not useful to avoid them, neither to guarantee data transparency.
Cool-Sens goes a step further by offering the first real-time, customisable cold chain monitoring service, that, thanks to a team of controllers 24/7, filters alerts and contacts the client or transporter according to their pre-defined criteria. In addition, two different technologies are used by Cool-Sens: (i) Artificial Intelligence (AI), which has been applied to identify risks that could jeopardise the cold chain and (ii) Blockchain technology, which will bring full end-to-end visibility to trace back incidences and full transparency on the cold chain.
Thanks to Cool-Sens, producers/manufacturers of temperature-sensitive products will reduce their losses due to breaks of the cold chain between 50% to 95%.
Ultimately, this will improve the quality of the temperature-sensitive products and reduce loses, therefore increasing productivity and reducing costs.

Cool-Sens devices