Checkpoint's expanded centre is a controlled environment where manufacturers and retailers can begin the process of evaluation and design of their own RFID programme.
"Designed to emulate real-world situations, Checkpoint engineers work with clients to outline a comprehensive plan that addresses practical RF technology issues as well as implementation and system integration requirements," said John Thorn, general manager of Checkpoints Supply Chain and Brand Solutions Group.
EU legislation on food traceability is coming into force in January 2005. The new legislation means that food traceability through the supply chain is going to become a legal responsibility of manufacturers, and under the new laws, food producers must be able to identify products by batch, lot or consignment numbers.
Traceability of the product must be possible at all stages of production, processing and distribution. This means food businesses will have to be able to identify every supplier of food, feed, a food producing animal or any substance incorporated into their food/feed products.
RFID technology has numerous applications for the food processing industry. In the meat processing industry for example, tags can be used to locate animals, which following the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in the UK, is a major concern in Europe. Residual chemicals in slaughtered livestock can also be more accurately calculated. This is again is a topical point, in the week that Scottish farmed salmon stocks were being investigated for containing high levels of cancer-causing pollutants.
Checkpoint is aware of the growing demand for RFID technology. As Steve Casey, senior director of Checkpoints ID engineering group points out, the market is becoming more and more crowded.
"There are many companies entering the space," he said. "Most are makers of parts of the 'whole product' solution or regional software providers."
Casey believes that the push towards RFID is being driven by retail giants as Wal-Mart, the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Healthcare Distribution Management Association (HDMA). Users, he says, are looking for standardised development processes to help them mitigate the financial, technical and business risk associated with adopting the new technology.
However, some experts believe that it will take time for the infrastructure necessary to support RFID tracking to be put in place. While the tags and readers have been around for a long time, there hasn't been a lot of software designed specifically for certain segments of the cattle industry. But the potential is there, and once the processing industry fully realises the benefits associated with RFID tracking, the technology will take off.
"The technology is still not known enough," said Chris Regan, marketing executive for UK-based RFID specialist Mannings. "If you look at the micro chip, you might not realise that the information from this can be put into a database, and that this can then be linked to other computers - with RFID we can generate information at an exponential rate."