The application of RFID technology in the quality
management of farming fishery products in China
Che bin
College of economics & management, Shanghai Ocean
University
Shanghai, P.R China 201306
bche@shou.edu.cn
Abstract-With the increment of the fishery products in China,
more and more attention is drawn to the safety of farming fishery
products from different levels. China always stressed the
importance to the issue of food safety. The wide application of
RFID and other technology offers great support to the upgrading
of the safety level of fishery products. The paper firstly
introduces the application principle of RFID and the five steps
from producing area to table of farming fishery products. Then it
analyzes the role in the safety risk decrease of farming fishery
products that is played by the application of RFID. Finally, it
puts forward that the application of RFID can combine the real-
time control and feedback control together and therefore can
improve the safety level of fishery products in China.
Key words-quality management, farming fishery products,
RFID technology
I. THE SAFETY STATUS OF THE FISHERY PRODUCTS OF
CHINA
According to the China fishery statistical yearbook, the
output of fishery products of China has been the first steadily in
the world since 1990. The export scale including the quantity
and value has also listed the first. In 2007, the export fishery
products reached more than 3 million ton and $ 9.7 billion
respectively, which ranked primacy in the export of large
amounts farm produce. Simultaneously, the safety level of
fishery products of China is increasing continuously. The grade
fishery products at home have been 85%. The grade fishery
products of export have reached as high as 99%1. However,
with the heighten of the domestic living level and the health
consciousness and the food safety standards of developed
countries, the safety of fishery products is drawn more and
more attention from different aspects. Based on the production
structure of fishery products of China, the augment of output
chiefly relies on farming. The farming output shares 67% of
domestic fishery products and shares 70% of world farming
fishery products. The safety problem occurs mostly among the
farming products. Accordingly, how to trace and supervise the
farming fishery products entirely and effectively is the key
issue to improve the safety level of fishery products of China.
The paper is funded by Shanghai keystone subject building project —
Food economics and management. Project code- J50703
978-1-4244-4639-1/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE
Sun chen
College of economics & management, Shanghai Ocean
University
Shanghai, P.R China 201306
chensun@shou.edu.cn
II. THE PRINCIPLE OF RFID TECHNOLOGY AND ITS
APPLICATION IN THE CONTROL OF FOOD SAFETY
RFID is the abbreviation of Radio Frequency Identification,
which is called popularly the electronic tag. RFID consists of
three parts. One part is Tag which is composed by coupling
components and CMOS chips. Each Tag has the unique
electronic code which is attached to the object to identify it.
Another part is Reader which can read ( sometime can read in )
the Tag information. It can be devised as hand-hold type or
fixation type. The other part is Antenna which can transfer
radio frequency information between Tag and Reader2.
RFID technology is one sort of flexible application
technology that can be easy to operate and be fit for automatic
control. After entering the magnetic field, RFID Tag can
receive the radio frequency signal sent by the Reader, then
resort the energy getting from he faradism to send off the
products information stored in the CMOS chips (Passive Tag),
or it can send off the signal actively with some frequency
(Active Tag ). After reading the information, Reader can
decode it and transfer it to central information system for data
processing. The special advantages of RFID technology can
not be reached by other identification technology. It can
support either read-only work mode or read-write work mode
without touch or aiming at. RFID technology can work
discretionarily in varieties of bad environment. RFID
technology can finish complex data integration. In addition,
because RFID technology is hard to be imitated and invaded, it
has great capability of security defending. RFID cells carry
varieties of relevant information about object such as the name
of the object, the beginning place, transfer place and end place
of the object, the precise time when the object pass by some
place, among other information. RFID cells can also carry
some parameter index such as temperature, humidity, etc.
RFID technology has been applied widely to different
industry abroad. The application to the food quality
management is in the ascendant. Especially, RFID tag is
utilized to supervise the status of the alive animal in the whole
course in order to form perfect food safety control system in
accordance with the industry chain. The essence is running
RFID and bar code through the food supply chain ( breeder ĺ
feeding ĺ slaughter ĺ segmentation ĺ small packaging ĺ
transportation ĺ table ) to form industry chain with strict
control in whole course so as to offer grade livestock food in
the market3. Once the livestock food happens to some safety
problem, it can be traced and supervised in the whole course
according to the RFID Tag attached to the packaging.
The successful case of the application of RFID technology
to the safety control in farming fishery products is Charoen
Pokphand Foods Company in Thailand. Collaborated with a
application company —— IE Technology Company, they plant
RFID CMOS chips into the plastic boxes for processed shrimp
transportation used by farming fields, markets and processing
factories4. The CMOS chips can store the relevant data
including producing area, species, ill record and something
about complementary protein usage so that the context of
shrimp can be known if needed. Taiwan province also
established and implemented the application plan of RFID in
farming fishery in order to enhance the international
competition power in 2006. They set up ‘The Transportation
and Distribution Center of Alive Fish ’. Joining the information
flat with RFID technology, they establish a electronic alive fish
supply chain with transparent information and rapid
transportation. The consumers can be clear at a glance the
information from breeding to consumption and take safety
alive fishery products.
III. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE APPLICATION OF RFID
TECHNOLOGY TO THE QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN FARMING
FISHERY PRODUCTS
The application of RFID technology to food safety
management fields would completely change the traditional
logistic mode of food and fishery products. The consumers
would be offered safer and healthier food choices and safety
ensures. The course from producing area to table of farming
fishery products consists of farming, processing and circulation
in common. From the point of supply chain view, the course
includes five stages, they are production, transportation,
processing, storage and distribution5, in which safety risk may
exist (see chart 1). The function of whole-course scouting of
RFID technology would play an important role in the quality
management of each stage of farming fishery products.

Information
flow

Logistic
risk
 information as well so as to be qualified and safety. After

farming transpo storage tran
sportation
area rtation
 be added into the RFID Tag by the factories. After the addition
risk risk
process
 area and processing stage has been stored in the electronic Tag,
risk

Fund flow

Information
flow
Chart 1 sketch map of fishery products supply chain and the safety risk
existence
3.1 The role in the production stage
In the production stage, the problem that is easy to occur is
the drug remnant. Since the deteriorating of the farming waters
leads to the frequent happening of diseases, fishermen would
utilize overabundant drug or utilize prohibited drug. A RFID
Tag can be made in accordance with a given water or a given
species whose farming scale is large and farming process is
normative. Fishermen can store the fish name, species,
producing area, water condition, farming time, feedstuff, drug,
the information of fishermen and other necessary data into the
RFID Tag. They can also record the product information and
farming process in the Tag. While the fishery products are
purchased, they can be classified quickly according to the
RFID Tag and can be given different prices based on different
measures. RFID Tag can provide the all-around headstream
information for the traceability of fishery products so that food
safety can be ensured from the beginning.
3.2 The role in the transportation stage
In the transportation stage, the problem that is easy to occur
is the repeated contamination of the fishery products.
Sometimes, because of the behindhand transportation
equipments, lagging fresh-keep techniques and sanitary
measures, the fishery products would be contaminated. The
fishery products packages or boxes with RFID Tag need not be
opened to be checked. The information of the packages or the
boxes can be read with the Reader. Since the check speed is
enhanced enormously, the risk of becoming decay of the
fishery products is decreased. Simultaneously, the probability
of being contaminated is decreased as well. Especially, when
the fishery products reach the destination, the processing
factories or middlemen can check the products information and
the transportation information so as to prevent the products
with safety problems from entering the process stage or market.
3.3 The role in the processing stage
In the processing stage, the difference in processing
equipments, crafts, check technique and quality management
measures would make for the discrepancy among processing
products. The material products can be filtered according to the
information embraced in the RFID Tag. The qualified materials
can be allowed to enter different processing stage. For the
fishery products entering different processing stage, they can
be pertinently processed with group according to the
risk
finished, the data including the information about processing
distr
factory, processing method, the used additives, processing date,
table
ibution the grade of products, packaging size, packaging weight,
useful-life, storage condition, among other information, should
risk
of the processing factories, the information about producing
which can be provided to the terminal consumers in the
retailing or the whole-sale markets. The information about
quality and safety of the fishery products are transparent
completely.
3.4 The role in the storage stage
In the storage stage, the key point is to keep the fishery
products fresh and prevent them from decay. Fishery products
contain high percent of protein and are easy to decay, so they
have special requirements for storage equipments and storage
conditions. Relying on the RFID Tag and the READER
installed at the refrigerator gate, the entry and exit of the
fishery products can be recorded automatically. According to
the information in the RFID Tag, judgment can be made
promptly whether the fishery products suit for storing in the
refrigerator and how long the fishery products can be stored.
While exiting the refrigerator, the fishery products can be
ordered the priorities based on the storage time so that some
high quality products would not be decayed due to over time
storage. Depending on the RFID technology, the manager can
realize to check the inventory of the refrigerator speedily and
know the state of the fishery products at any moment so as to
keep the products from being decay because of unsuitable
temperature.
3.5 The role in the distribution stage
In the distribution stage, more and more fishery products,
especially the high quality fishery products, enter the family by
the way of super markets. As to the fishery products sold in the
super markets, RFID Tag can help the merchants to know the
state of the fishery products having been purchased and to
establish the admittance system. Particularly, some intelligent
electronic tag can help people to supervise the useful-life of the
fishery products that are very easy to decay. For instance, some
high quality fishery products can be followed up. Once the
useful-time of the products is exceeded, the Tag would send
out the warning so that the safety of the fishery products in the
distribution stage is ensured.
To sum up, the application of RFID to the quality control of
farming fishery products could store all of the information in
each stage including producing, transportation, processing,
storage and distribution. Accordingly, the RFID Tag can be
employed to carry out the real-time control on the quality of
fishery products such as to know the fresh-keeping state of the
products, to supervise and control the useful-time of the
products and so on. The RFID Tag can be also utilized to
implement the feedback control on the quality of fishery
products through scouting the products in the whole course and
finding the stages occurring safety problems or the range of
products with safety problems. In a word, the application of
RFID technology to the quality management of the farming
fishery products combines the real-time control and feedback
control together and therefore it could enhance significantly the
safety level of farming fishery products.
REFERENCES
[1] ]The state congress of PRC, Chinese white book of the status of food
safety.Beijing. 2007.08
[2] Lu-feifei. The general view of the RFID application in Shanghai city.
RFID Radio frequency snap newspaper.2006.04.19.
[3] Xu-chengdong. RFID application in the food safety field. RFID Radio
frequency snap newspaper. 2007.09.18.
[4] China Agriculture ministry, 2007China fishery statistical yearbook,
unpublished.
[5] He-lin. Thailand shrimp products company adopts processing flow with
RFID tracing. RFID China Forum. 2007.07.16
[6] Jin-shufang. The application of RFID technology to the fishery products
supply chain. Logistic technology and application. 2008.04.