14 DAY TRIAL // A team of researchers and chemists have devised a system that allows barcodes to signal if products are fresh, or if their “best before” time is overdue. The technique works best for frozen foods, but other teams are working on some similar methods as well, including smell detectors, also placed in the barcodes, or electronic variations on the same principle. The new type of barcodes is almost invisible, but it turns red as soon as the product it's attached to is no longer fresh. Research in this field has been sponsored by several large food companies, which say that they want the system to benefit both retailers and customers.
The main obstacles for developing such efficient sensors are finding a way to “read” how fresh the frozen product is, and then translating that information into a universally-readable color scheme. The goal is to make the barcodes readable to anyone attempting to do so, even if they lack specialized reading equipment. Another issue is getting past these issues with a technology that would be inexpensive, so as not to increase the basic price of the product.
Thus far, estimates say that the prices of foods tagged with “intelligent barcodes” will only increase by four cents, which is an acceptable one, considering the health benefits. Upon the introduction of the new system, food companies will also be able to better track their merchandise through the distribution chains and to identify where they are stored for prolonged periods of time, instead of being displayed. This is essential to them, as someone purchasing an expired product from a company is very unlikely to buy the same brand again.
The new technology can now be applied to frozen meat, fish and dairy products, but the researchers behind it hope to extend it to others as well. Among similar methods of determining a food's freshness, other teams are working on creating a smell-detecting barcode, which could give people a hint of what the product inside the package actually smells like. This would be very useful to those buying things such as chips, peanuts, coffee and whatnot, where flavor often plays an important part.