Development of traceability system of aquatic foods supply chain based on RFID and EPC internet of things

Abstract: Food safety has become an important global public-health issue, and aquatic safety issues were never suspended. With the exposure and the emergence of some aquatic products' quality and safety issues in China, safety issues for the quality of aquatic products has become the bottleneck of the sustainable development of fisheries and aquatic products for import and export trade. In response to the risk in the aquatic foods supply chain and to improve services, the traceable platform of the aquatic foods supply chain is highly required. Quality problems of aquatic products could occur in every aspect of the aquatic foods supply chain, including breeding, processing, distribution, and sale. So not only policies, but also technical supports are needed to ensure the quality and safety of aquatic products and to bottom out the safety hazards. In response to these issues, this paper takes tilapia as the object of study and designs and develops a traceable platform of the aquatic foods supply chain based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Electronic Product Code (EPC) Internet of Things, and focuses on designing Object Name Service (ONS) and EPC Information Service (EPCIS) of this platform. Tracking, traceability, recall, and monitoring of tilapia products in the food supply chain can be achieved with the participation of consumers, enterprises, and the government. This platform contains an aquaculture management system, process management system, distribution management system, sales management system, and querying and monitoring system, and realizes all-the-way traceability of aquatic products from breeding, processing, and distribution to sales. This platform has the following characteristics: 1) It has a monitoring function of tilapia farming, and can track and trace all aspects of information from breeding, production, processing, and distribution to sale; 2) It brings out informationization on the production and management of enterprises, and achieves all-the-way monitoring of tilapia's quality and safety through the construction of information technology; 3) It has three functions including water quality monitoring, early warning of tilapia's epidemic, and early warning of the risks of tilapia's quality and safety, which facilitates enterprise management and supervision of tilapia's quality for quality supervision departments; 4) Consumers can inquire and complain about tilapia product information on the traceability platform. Feedback information will be dealt with promptly to protect the consumer equity. The platform combines the use of RFID technology and bar code technology. RFID tags are used from breeding to store, and barcode labels are attached to the independent small package in the final form for the users to query, which can meet the required functionality and save some costs. In addition, the EPC can uniquely identify products, thus through the use of the EPC global coding standard and read-write RFID tags, RFID tags can be recycled by rewriting the EPC encoded in the tags, which can reduce the production and management costs. In this platform, consumers are the main users and the final beneficiaries, through trace codes. Consumers can acquire information of suppliers and products, which enhances their desire to purchase products and improves their faith. Enterprises can use the retrospective mechanism of this platform to reduce costs and risks, and to win market opportunities. Government's involvement is a major highlight of the platform, which proposes the possibility of supervision and protection of agricultural products' quality and safety management. The traceability platform has been on probation in two companies, including the World Agricultural Development Co. Ltd and MAIKOUGUAI Food Company, and produced a good effect on the turnover and market satisfaction of the products. Furthermore, research on this subject provides a good clue for the establishment of a traceability system for meat, vegetables, and other foods.