The federal government plans to use technology to better track the nation's food supply in the wake of North American mad cow scares. And companies such as Viewtrak Technologies Inc. are anxiously waiting to see how it all pans out.
Viewtrack, which has an office in one of Ottawa's industrial parks, has a software solution that collects and stores records on the life of cattle, including birth dates, moves from one location to another, treatments, vaccinations and feeding patterns.
"In the beef industry, almost none of that information is passed from owner to owner," explained Michael Conlon, Viewtrak's chief technology officer. "So we're facilitating an end-to-end picture of that animal's history in terms of who owned it and what was done to it."
The information can be used for auditing purposes in the event of disease outbreaks, he added. It can also go far in satisfying export requirements and restoring confidence in Canadian beef products, Conlon said.
"This allows you to quickly zero in on where that animal had been and what it had been in contact with."
Viewtrak uses scanners that work with barcodes or radio frequency identification (RFID) chips embedded in the ear tags of Canadian cattle. Once a cow is scanned, the information is downloaded to a central database.
The company has pilot projects in Alberta and Quebec and, a few weeks ago, made a sale in the United States to a large cattle broker, said Conlon.
Viewtrak is now looking at a wireless connection for its remote scanners that will allow real-time transmission of information, he said.
Last October, Viewtrak president Jake Burlet told a federal agriculture committee that, if farmers were required to be part of the data collection system, the fallout from last spring's case of mad cow disease in Alberta could have been contained.
Burlet called on Ottawa to make his company's system mandatory.
The Canadian Cattle Identification Agency already employs a complex tracking system that uses RFID tags and barcode tags. Movements of cattle are monitored as each animal goes from field to slaughterhouse to packing plant. The agency plans to move completely to RFID tags by 2005 and representatives predict the cost of each tag to decrease to as little as $1as more bulk purchases are made.
But Conlon said Viewtrak's system will only complement the agency's, which only records the animal's farm of origin and slaughter location. Viewtrak goes beyond that "minimal" information and fills in all the blanks, he said.
Further opportunities for companies such as Viewtrak could come next summer, when Ottawa's Can-Trace team will announce the method it will use for a massive food supply chain tracking system. Can-Trace aims to extend tracking abilities among various producers, from the field through to the consumer. Its mandate is to standardize tracking systems for plants and animals and achieve buy-in from industry so systems will be interoperable. The initiative is especially timely in the wake of mad cow scares in Canada and the U.S., as well as ongoing outbreaks of avian flu that originated in Asia but cropped up last week at a B.C. chicken farm.
Viewtrak may participate in the anticipated request for proposal, said Conlon, who attended a Can-Trace meeting in Toronto earlier this month.
"The (Can-Trace) model ... is certainly something we could support," he said. "Before the animal gets inside a package, it has been around for about 18 months and a lot of the slaughterhouse information is in multiple places in less then ideal formats. So, depending on the level of information that the end retailer would like, we could facilitate the producer groups to get that information in a useable, auditable format."
