‘ImpacTrack’ Can Help Reduce Food Wastage

In order to reduce food wastage that is increasing day by day, a UK based firm dealing in farm produce and making available fresh produce food to consumers has introduced a monitoring and logging system titled "ImpacTrack".

To combat the 10.2 million tons of food waste in the UK and the 1.3bn tons globally, each year, specialist crop quality monitoring equipment manufacturer Martin Lishman has designed and developed a shock and temperature monitor that has the capacity to help the food industry reduce the damage to fresh produce during handling & transportation.

As supermarkets, food manufacturers and growers in the UK pledge to cut food waste by 2030, a British crop quality monitoring specialist has launched an innovative damage prevention device designed to help solve the problem worldwide.

ImpacTrack, a monitoring and logging system which records movement & temperature, is available with a range of shells which match the dimensions of fresh produce, so far including avocados, kiwi fruit, strawberries, apples, onions, potatoes and eggs.

By recording and reporting on the journey of fresh produce through handling, packing and transport processes, food producers and hauliers will be able to make informed modifications to their processes to reduce the amount of food which is regularly wasted because of damage such as bruising.

Dr Gavin Lishman, MD of Martin Lishman, said, “Fresh produce is delicate and any knocks and bumps and dramatic changes in temperature can result in it being rejected at several stages from field to fork.

He said, “ImpacTrack can be used to monitor any item as it travels down the production line and we’ve been asked to make shells for everything from maize cobs to large blueberries. Results are transmitted in real time using Bluetooth to the ML Sensing iOS/Android app, to help identify damage sources and improve quality control.

In a recent test by the UK based arm of the Greenyard Group, a global market leader in fresh, frozen and prepared fruit and vegetables, flowers and plants, the technical team put ImpacTrack through its paces in their avocado grading line.