SALINAS, Calif. — As Inteligistics Inc. founder Rao Mandava sees it, fresh produce temperature monitoring is inextricably linked to issues of food safety, traceability and regulatory compliance.
Mandava, who is working with Driscoll’s, Fresh Express, Dole and retailer Giant Eagle among others, brought his supply chainwide point of view to Forbes Media’s AgTech Summit in Salinas, Calif., in July.
Pittsburgh, Pa.-based Inteligistics offers the InteliView suite of technologies for harvesting, forced-air and vacuum pre-cooling, shipment, distribution centers and stores.
InteliView employs machine to machine communications, wireless sensors, radio frequency identification and other capabilities.
“It senses the temperature automatically and identifies the current temperature in a color coded way,” Mandava said of one module. “When it’s green, they just move and it’s done. Previously they used to poke and find, and that’s losing time. It’s all mobile technology too.”
“Temperature is mission critical to produce safety and quality, and right now it’s being done manually, which is inefficient,” he said. “With paper recording the industry misses out a lot. Our systems help them make it automatic.”
“No company that I know of is doing it from harvest to the retail store, and from the picking point to the cooling point there are not that many,” he said.
A key distinction drawn by Inteligistics is between pulp and ambient temperature.
“We always do the pulp temperature, not the ambient like a lot of other people do in transportation,” Mandava said. “With the Food Safety Modernization Act coming on, we’re gearing up for how, from beginning to end, safety is being monitored by a system. Regulatory compliance and real-time, correct information are a big part of that. No assumptions.”
Inteligistics was among the companies featured in the AgTech Summit’s innovation showcase.