August 9, 2004

 

 

Thai Shrimps Industry Implements Traceability Project

 

Exported Thai shrimps now reveal not only where they were born, nursed and fed, and details of their parents, but also the foods and medicines they took, and the processes they have been through ¡§C and everything is traceable online.

 

To increase the fresh and frozen-food product industry"s export revenue, four parties ¡§C frozen shrimp manufacturers, shrimp farmers, government agencies and software companies ¡§C have joined to implement a food-traceability project using software to manage information in all processes, from farm to table.

 

According to a report from the Customs Department and Thai Frozen Foods Association, in 2000 Thailand exported more than 144,000 tons of fresh and frozen shrimp worldwide, generating more than Bt60 billion in revenue.

 

However, the numbers have gradually dropped each subsequent year, plunging dramatically to some 119,000 tons with revenue of about Bt35.9 billion in 2003.

 

It is hoped that the use of the software, which enables customers to trace back through all processes to the product"s origin, will effectively boost demand for shrimp internationally, especially in strict markets like Europe and Japan. "This, at the same time, sets standards for the products while differentiating the producers at export, as so far nobody has worked on food traceability in shrimps," said Supachai Lorlowhakarn, director of the National Innovation Agency.

 

The agency has coordinated and financed those involved from different industries.

 

In the initial phase, three food processors, including Pakfood, which is one of the leading manufacturers and distributors of frozen foods and aquatic animals, the White Shrimp Producers Club, and four software companies - ThaiCom Management Group, Intersol Consulting, Intelligent Solution and Service, and FXA Group - worked on the project.

 

Each software company is responsible for a system needed to manage different processes in each of the groups involved with shrimps, from when they are first nursed and fed until they are frozen.

 

Since food traceability concerns three main aspects - origin, safety and quality - software used in the project will collect information such as place of birth, lineage, medical records, and use of protein supplements.

 

Software used at the sites of all parties includes systems to control the automatic mix-feed mill, a program for production quality control and management, and the food-product trace software that integrates information gathered from all processes.

 

Chatta Udomwongsa, FXA Group"s head of marketing, said the project"s implementation would turn around the whole process and force farmers as well as manufacturers to take care of their products in a more systematic way. "Software is a tool to make all information traceable and create transparency in the whole manufacturing line," he said.

 

FXA is a food industry software firm that created Web-based, data-tracing software enabling agricultural-product exporters to electronically collect and trace all data related to the processing of their products.

 

Farmers involved with the project have to note medical information, food, and size, either on paper or personal digital assistant, before keying in or transferring those details to a computer to build up a complete database.

 

Food processors have to key in information concerning the processes at their plants.

 

It is then possible for customers to trace every single step that the shrimps have gone through. The better and more precise the tracing system, the faster a producer can identify and resolve food safety or quality problems.

 

With the help of the software systems, if customers discover contamination in a frozen pack, they can find at which part of which process the contamination occurred.

 

Anukul Tamprasirt, managing director of ThaiCom Management Group, said that in order to make the software from different companies used in a range of processes work together, the companies would work to overcome application interface problems ¡§C thus enabling the system parts to understand and talk to each other.

 

ThaiCom Management Group is responsible for the software for wireless terminals like Palms or PDAs which will be used by farmers to collect information about their produce.