A miniaturized system to secure the cold chain

Información del proyecto

TEMPIX

Identificador del acuerdo de subvención: 877359

DOI

10.3030/877359

Proyecto finalizado

Fecha de la firma de la CE 15 Julio 2019

Fecha de inicio 1 Agosto 2019

Fecha de finalización 31 Enero 2020

Financiado con arreglo a

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Coste total

€ 71 429,00

Aportación de la UE

€ 50 000,00

Coordinado por

TEMPIX
Sweden

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TEMPIX (A miniaturized system to secure the cold chain)

Período documentado: 2019-08-01 hasta 2020-01-31

Resumen del contexto y de los objetivos generales del proyecto

Tempix can monitor cold chains and detect temperature abuse. Tempix printers are big and very expensive. Even though our cold chain securing lables may cost 0,5 cent each the printers are too expensive for the market. Tempix needs to develop miniaturised, desktop size printers that cost a fraction of the existing systems.

Food safety is the most important property of food. With proven and correct temperature handling in the cold chains the expiry dates on food can be prolonged with up to 30%. Food producers set the expiry dates too short today due to the lack of confidence in proper cold chain management. Indvidual packages may be temperature abused.
With the miniaturised system Tempix can offer cold chain securing solutions to the whole society and market. Food waste will be decreased. The quality of the food will be increased with less food poisoning cases around the world.

Ojectives
1. To achieve a miniaturized and low cost solution for printing and producing the Tempix smart labels.
2. Increase the shelf lifes on food and persiherables with up to 30 % in the whole EU.
3. Reduce waste on food throughout the cold chains and also in the households. Of the total food waste 53% is from the households, mainly due to too short expiry dates. With up to 30% more time before the food expires in the fridges the food increase the probability to ending in the human mouth.
4. reduce food poisoning cases around the world.

Trabajo realizado desde el comienzo del proyecto hasta el final del período abarcado por el informe y los principales resultados hasta la fecha

Tempix biggest challenge has been to find a partner that can handle all of the existing technologies involved in the production of the temperature labels. Our two existing partners developed large format Tempix printersTheir technology is not suitable for the development of small desktop printers. They are focused on the primary food industry and have no intention of entering the secondary food industry (ie. food products).
The ideal technology partner for Tempix should be:
• Thermal printer producers for the Tempix desktop printer. Tempix has identified 30 potential thermal printer producers around the globe. All these companies produce small and fast handheld or desktop printers for different kind of labeling purposes.
• Dispensing technology manufacturers for the Tempix Dispenser. Tempix has identified three potential companies involved in liquid dispensing technology.
• Mechanical manufacturer for the Tempix Manual Dispenser. Tempix has looked at the basic label design and managed to invent a manual dispenser together with a local mechanical CNC-manufacturer.

Top three reasons for companies not adopting Tempix:
a) Lack of government enforcement and checks (since no one is checking, why bother to implement). There are basically no enforcement checks anywhere regarding the cold chain management.
b) The existing printer is too large. It weighs 100 kg together with the trolley. Requires pressurized air to operate (including electricity).
c) The printer is too expensive. USD 40,000 is just too much money and requires approval from compa-nies investment boards. Even though the indicator can cost below 1 cent the heavy upfront capital expenditure is creating an adoption hurdle.

Tempix has performed a survey among over 30 thermal printer manufacturers for the Tempix Desktop Printer. We have asked for their initial interest to take part in the development of a desktop printer de-signed for applying Tempix Cold Chain Technology on their printer platform. All of the companies can produce the desktop printer if they assign enough resources for the project. The most important thing for the Tempix team is that the manufacturing partner is committed to the project with the proper resources. We are intensifying the cooperation with one selected printer producer. Tempix has many years of experience with the existing Marel and Domino printers. We have examined the future needs and prepared specifications for the future desktop printer manufacturer. Our new specifications contains of at least 18 major technical changes to the existing printer solution. Many of the specifications are required for the Tempix Dispenser as well. The only difference is that printing is not performed in the dispenser.

Tempix has examined possibilities with three dispensing technology manufacturers. They all seem to have the capability to develop and produce the dispensers. The advantage of a pure dispenser is that thermal printing of the underlying labels can be achieved with existing printers or preprinted rolls. The capital expenditure will be significantly reduced since the thermal print head is not needed. This is a very interesting technology leap forward. Maybe even better than using desktop printer. However, Tempix team is very interested in developing the dispenser as well together with the desktop printer. We foresee a huge demand for both of the technologies and the same producer may be used.

Tempix has developed and produced a Tempix Manual Dispenser. It is an affordable and easy-to-adopt way of producing the labels. The labels have to be printed first through direct thermal printing method at Tempix premises. After printing, the labels are processed though a manual dispenser that is adjustable for different label sizes. The activator is applied through a pipette and the cover label is mechanically affixed after. An experienced operator produce between 2-5 labels per minute. This system may function in countries without electricity (eg Africa) or in trial purposes when you want to produce sample labels. It is a very fast system to test different temperatures and go-off-time settings. Tempix labels are already remarkably affordable and together with the manual dispenser we foresee huge benefits in developing countries. This system will be used in Somaliland together with Somaliland Food Quality Control.

Avances que van más allá del estado de la técnica e impacto potencial esperado (incluida la repercusión socioeconómica y las implicaciones sociales más amplias del proyecto hasta la fecha)

Tempix has found that one of the biggest deliveries this far is that our indicators may be manually produced. This manual dispenser was an eye-opener for us.

Especially for poor countries, we can develop a methodology to produce cold chain securing labels for food, pharma, vaccines even without the use of electricity. We will start this firstly in Somaliland together with their quality control. Due to the Coronoa crisis we have not been able to travel there in the beginning of Mrch as planned to start te project. We see that cold chains in developing countries all out of the world may be monitored with the use of our inexpensive and easy-to-adopt system. We have been trying to reach the WHO, Gates Foundation, and other help organizations, but without success so far. With the grants from EU and more positive publicity around Tempix we hope to find the right way inside there. Maybe the future Corona vaccines requires a proper cold chain? If so, we want to secure every vaccine vial.

The manual dispenser also makes it much easier to perform trials and checkups with Tempix labels. We can easily ship to testkit to everywhere in the world. With the provided instructions from us they can check start checking their cold chains very easily. It is also very easy to change the settings of the indicator, monitor a different temperature, allow less or more temperature abuse by simply changing the used activator or choose a label with a different "go-off-time" setting.

With the manual dispenser problems in the cold chains may be detected at a very low cost. Authorities can detect temperature abuse in their cold chain control of different business operations.