German researchers are developing a laser-based scanner, which can check the freshness of meat and meat products, from the slaughterhouse, to processing plants and retailers.

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The Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Micro-integration is coordinating the EUR3m (US$3.87m) FreshScan project, funded by the German research ministry.


The system would involve semi-active radio frequency identification (RFID) tags with temperature sensors recording freshness as meat products move down supply chains.


An RFID reader with a laser-based optical detector would analyse and record this tag-documented data. Institute researcher Rolf Thomasius said his colleagues wanted to commercialise a prototype “shortly after the research project ends” in 2008.

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