Track and trace tag extends way beyond the warehouse

You can run but you can’t hide … among its diverse applications, RFID technology has been used to keep tabs on ostriches. KEVIN MAYHEW THEY BURY their heads in the sand believing that nobody can see them but now they cannot hide their own pedigree or health history thanks to invisible radio frequency identification of their life’s data. When the Klein Karoo Cooperative was required to prove to European inspectors that ostriches had been inoculated, kept under quarantine and handled correctly before slaughter, they turned to one of the key record and audit methods used in warehousing and transport today to keep the exports winging along. “To establish a complete audit from birth, through the various farms, to the abattoir, 100 000 ostriches were tagged with reusable tags at the time of inoculation. Handheld terminals were used by the veterinary technicians to record the date and time of inoculation, where it took place and the batch of medicine used. This same information was stored on the tag attached to the wing of the ostrich,” says Des Oliver, marketing director of Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) supplier, SACO Systems. Each bird’s information was downloaded from the handheld terminals onto the central database. Similarly, when the ostriches were delivered to the Cooperative, each one was scanned by a reader at the offloading point. “This process verified that each ostrich had been inoculated at least three months prior to delivery and any birds that did not conform to the criteria required by the European Union before export of their meat could be identified and rejected,” he explained.