In The News

Label company a link in food-safety chain

Firm's technology can track grocery, pharmaceutical items

Carlton Proctor • cproctor@pnj.com • April 6, 2008

Whether biting into an apple, surfing a salad bar, or chowing down on a back yard burger, the average consumer doesn't spend much time worrying about food safety.

Most assume — correctly — their food is safe because it comes from the neighborhood grocery store or is served at a local restaurant.

But recent recalls of contaminated beef, farm produce, medicines and even toothpaste have sent shock waves through the nation's food supply chain, rattling consumer confidence.

Food safety concerns are definitely on the rise, but so are innovative solutions addressing those concerns.

Some of the most creative are coming from a small, but growing Pensacola company.

From meadow to market

Label Technique Southeast Inc., based at Ellyson Industrial Park, has devised a sophisticated technology that provides growers, distributors and consumers with tracking and tracing systems capable of pinpointing key links along the entire food supply chain.

The company's newly developed StrataTrace labeling technology can help ensure food safety "from the meadow to the market," as company owner and president Joan Wallace likes to put it.

And for shopper Jean Anderson, visiting Pensacola from the Pacific Northwest, food safety and country of origin are an ever-increasing concern.

"I don't buy products from Mexico because of the pesticides they use there," she said. "The more local products I can buy, even though it might cost more, the better.

"So food labeling, and knowing where the food comes from, is very important to me," she said. "And for me, the store and its reputation and integrity are the first lines of defense."

While Label Technique's trademarked tracking system can be adapted to work on nearly any grocery store product, it's also designed to help prevent counterfeit prescription drugs from getting in the supply chain.

Traced quickly

"The average person might think counterfeiting doesn't hurt them, but it does," said Wallace. "It takes away tax dollars, it takes away jobs. The public needs to know that product counterfeiting is big, big business."

Losses in the pharmaceutical industry from drug counterfeiting are easily in the hundreds of billions of dollars, she said.

Wallace, her husband and operations manager, Norm Wallace, along with business development manager, Bob Driggers, have spent the past two and a half years and some $2 million, developing their StrataTrace system.

Their advanced labeling technology is being combined with other techniques used in the food and drug security industry to create a seamless supply line that can be tracked and traced quickly.

The company makes labels that carry an additional code that can be scanned into or typed into a database and can be used to track and trace fresh produce and quickly identify point sources of contamination.

Driggers cites the fall 2006 outbreak of E coli bacteria on spinach from a California farm that sickened more than 250 people in 26 states, and caused several deaths.

"It took 43 days to isolate the field where the contaminated spinach was picked," said Driggers.

"Our technology will not tell if spinach is contaminated, but it will quickly identify where the product came from and if the integrity of the supply chain was maintained," he said.

Had Label Technique's StrataTrace system been in place and used by that spinach supplier, Food and Drug Administration investigators could have identified and isolated the source of the outbreak in minutes, not weeks.

"With our technology they would have known which field it came from, even which row and, theoretically, we could even know who picked it," said Wallace.

The company's technology also will allow consumers to go to a food supplier's Web site, enter the numeric code from their food product label and view its entire history — from the field to the processing plant to the grocery store.

Food safety is not yet a major concern with many shoppers at local grocery stores, including Apple Market on Scenic Highway.

Produce manager Glenn Isler said "not too many people ask about where the produce comes from. We do have some products that come from out of country... and some customers won't buy the produce if they know it comes from Mexico."

Nearly all of Apple Market's produce comes from brokers who buy it from local or regional growers, Isler said.

The kind of high-tech labeling being used in the food safety industry is big business, according to A.J. Wilson, owner of Timberline Packaging Co. in Pensacola.

Wilson said Label Technique "does really great work," adding that the company is one of the most innovative in the field of food safety track-and-trace technology.

"It used to be we felt secure about our food supply, that no one could be selling us anything that would poison us," said Wilson. "Food safety is coming on strong these days. And it's coming on very quickly.

July 18, 2008

Food Contamination Traceability
A Case Study for Food Supply Track and Trace System

By: Joan Wallace
President and CEO of Label Technique S.E., Inc.

The seemingly impossible task of tracing the source of the latest Salmonella contamination in fresh vegetables could have been completed in minutes.

The entire nation collectively “scratches it head” wondering why we can’t locate the cause of the recent Salmonella outbreaks. What they may not know is product tracking and tracing is available today and simple to do. One label manufacturing company in Pensacola, Florida under their StrataTrace™ Technology program, has proven tracking and tracing is easy to implement and very affordable. Working with their customer and a vendor partner this system is currently in use this growing season.

Joan Wallace, President and CEO of Label Technique Southeast, Inc. (LTSI) in Pensacola, Florida spent over two years and more than one million dollars to get her company ready to provide track and trace services to all industries.

After exhibiting their capabilities in trade shows across the country including Houston, Las Vegas, and Washington, DC, the company decided to go one step further and launch the traceability feature of their business into the marketplace.

Although everyone agreed this feature was a great idea no one seemed to think “they” needed this track and trace, even while some companies were closing down due to losses from their contaminated food product. LTSI believed that there was no “Silver Bullet” to take care of everything. But a “Layering of Technologies” entering the market would create the closest thing to a “Silver Bullet”.

Under their StrataTrace™ Technology umbrella, LTSI set out to partner with what they felt was the best in the market. They chose YottaMark for their technology of randomly generated codes for product tracking. Evidencia was chosen for their best in the marketplace time and temperature tracking. Others were chosen for covert, overt, and forensic technologies to fight counterfeiting and privacy in brand protection.

But the most pressing problem at the moment is the problem of all the illness due to contaminated produce. In order to prove how simple and inexpensive this solution would be, LTSI went to one of their customers, Leger & Son Watermelon Company to address their concerns. Leger sends his melons to market in large bins, but the watermelon can get moved and mixed with watermelons from other growers. Even if his bins were tagged and labeled, there is no reliable method to ensure that the melon the store customer goes home with is one of his.

LTSI showed Leger how, using his existing pressure sensitive label applied directly to the melon, YottaMark’s randomly generated HarvestMark codes could be printed on his current label. His codes would be held in a secured database and could be tracked directly to the field from where they were grown if desired, along with a variety of other information. This could be done in a matter of minutes…not days, weeks, or in some cases, never. If a contamination recall was ordered, Leger & Sons would have almost instant exemption with their verifiable database of traceability for their watermelons.

LTSI was so convinced of the need to prove this technology in an actual real world application that they offered to provide the first one million labels with the printed codes at no cost to Leger. Everyone agreed to that trial.

YottaMark set up the software and within a few hours had the Leger personnel trained on the use of these codes. This season these melons are currently in the marketplace and tracking is available now. Mrs. Wallace agrees that this is just as possible with tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables, “It is our desire, as well as our partners, to show the USDA, FDA, CDC, Brand Owners, Quality Control Persons, Food Scientists, and everyone just how easy and affordable it is to track and trace our food. Instead of just going one up and one down, just bins and pallets, why not track single items, cartons, and bundles with “Meadow to Market Traceability”™?

StrataTrace™ Technology is here now and in use by market leading producers. How many more have to get sick or die while we all are still “trying to figure out a way” to put a plan into action?

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