Food tracking system with mobile phone uplink
A tracking system for food products includes labeled food product packages and labeled containers for transporting the labeled packages to harvest sites. A data-clearing center receives mobile phone communications from the harvest sites for uploading the container codes. Ancillary information collected from the mobile phone communications including the time, date, location, and phone identification is associated with the container codes for linking the labeled food product packages to details of their harvest.
1. A method of tracing the origin of food products comprising steps of
associating product codes on a plurality of food product packages with a container code on a container for transporting the food product packages to a harvest site,
receiving the container code through a mobile phone connection with the harvest site at which the container is delivered,
acquiring information about the mobile phone connection to the harvest site, and
relating the product codes associated with the container code to the information about the mobile phone connection to the harvest site for linking food products placed within the food product packages at the harvest site with information about the harvest site.
2. The method of claim 1 in which the step of associating includes a step of receiving the container code on the container together with the product codes on the plurality of product packages within the container.
3. The method of claim 2 including a step of storing the product codes in association with the container code.
4. The method of claim 1 in which the information acquired about the mobile phone connection includes the location of the harvest site.
5. The method of claim 4 including a step of linking the location of the harvest site to information concerning a farm.
6. The method of claim 4 in which the information acquired about the mobile phone connection includes the date on which the container code was received through the mobile phone connection.
7. The method of claim 6 including a step of linking the date and location of the harvest to weather conditions relevant to the harvest.
8. The method of claim 4 in which the information acquired about the mobile phone connection includes an identification of a mobile phone through which the container code was received.
9. The method of claim 8 including a step of linking the identification of the mobile phone to a harvesting agent associated with loading the product packages with food product at the harvesting site.
10. The method of claim 1 in which the container code is received through the mobile phone connection in an image form and including a step of deciphering the uploaded container code.
11. The method of claim 1 including a step of providing feedback through the mobile phone connection to the harvest site relating to the validity of the container code received through the mobile phone connection.
12. The method of claim 11 in which the feedback is limited to dealing with invalid codes.
13. A method of relating food products to their harvest sites based on product packaging codes of product packages into which the food products are harvested comprising steps of:
maintaining a data base that associates the product package codes of the product packages to container codes of containers for distributing the product packages,
supporting mobile phone connections to harvest sites for communicating container codes of containers delivered to the harvest sites, and
linking information relating locations of the harvest sites to the product package codes associated with the container codes of the containers delivered to the harvest sites.
14. The method of claim 13 including a step of acquiring the locations of the harvest sites from information about the mobile phone connections.
15. The method of claim 14 including a step linking the locations of the harvest sites to particular farms.
16. The method of claim 14 including a step of acquiring information concerning a harvest team at the harvest site from the mobile phone connection.
17. The method of claim 14 including a step of linking the locations of the harvest sites together with the approximate time of communications from the harvest sites through the mobile phone connections to ascertain additional information about growing or harvesting conditions of the food products.
18. The method of claim 17 in which the additional information includes weather conditions.
19. The method of claim 13 including steps of supporting queries concerning one or more product package codes and reporting on the one or more harvest sites linked to the one or more product package codes.
20. The method of claim 13 including steps of accepting product package codes of suspect food products, linking the package codes of the suspect food products to one or more harvest sites, and providing a list of product package codes associated with the one or more harvest sites.
21. The method of claim 20 including a step of identifying commonalities associated with the linked harvest sites.
22. The method of claim 21 in which the commonalities include at least one of a common geographical area, a common harvesting time, and a common grower.
23. The method of claim 20 including a step of automatically reporting on the list of product package codes linked to the suspect food products.
24. A data-clearing center for relating food products to their harvest sites based on product packaging codes of product packages into which the food products are harvested comprising
an accessible data base that associates the product package codes of the product packages to container codes of containers for distributing the product packages to harvest sites,
a mobile phone base for uploading container codes of containers delivered to the harvest sites and for ascertaining locations of the harvest sites from which the uploads originate, and
a processor that accesses the data base and links the locations of the harvest sites to the product package codes of the product packages into which the food products are harvested through the association of the product package codes with the container codes of the containers delivered to the harvest sites.
25. The data-clearing center of claim 24 including an interface for accepting queries containing one or more product packaging codes and a response system that relates the one or more product packaging codes to their one or more associated container codes and relates the one or more associated container codes with their one or more harvest sites.
26. The data-clearing center of claim 25 in which the processor further processes the queries to identify commonalities among the container codes.
27. The data-clearing center of claim 26 in which the commonalities include at least one of a common geographical area, a common harvesting time, and a common grower.