2006 press releases

Northern Foods, one of the UK’s leading food manufacturers, was this week recognised for the best integration of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology at the 2006 European RFID Breakthrough Awards.

Nominated for the award by one of its software providers IBM, Northern Foods beat off competition from five other finalists to win the 2006 RFID Integration Award, which was presented at the awards ceremony in London on November 8.

Northern Foods makes a wide range of own label food for leading UK supermarkets. In partnership with one of its major retail customers, the company uses RFID technology to electronically read, write and monitor data to tags on trays which are used to transport food to the customer.

The RFID technology, which replaces traditional cardboard labels, enables information, such as product identification and display until date, to be automatically uploaded to the RFID tags.

The technology means the information is kept up to date and is easily accessible by the customer, cutting out paper trails, whilst storage of historical data supports improved product traceability.

Data is written to over 700,000 tags per week from sites across Northern Foods’ manufacturing base and all the data is captured on one central database for analysis.

Derek Newman, Northern Foods’ Chief Information Officer, said: “It’s a great achievement for Northern Foods to have won this award and it demonstrates our commitment to innovation and our aim to use leading edge technology for our own and our customers’ benefit.”

Northern Foods was also a finalist in the RFID Implementation Award, for which it was nominated by Siemens. This award was won by the Oyster Card payment system for the London Underground.