Meat goes mobile with Wolf smartphone innovation

German meat and sausage manufacturer Wolf is offering consumers the chance to access detailed product information about its pre-packed products at point of sale via their smartphones. 

The move has been enabled thanks to a partnership with IT solutions firm CSB-System. It allows Wolf to ensure seamless traceability throughout its operation from the initial receipt of raw materials to the final pack on-shelf.

Incoming raw materials receive a goods entry label that records detailed information, including item number and description, entry date, quantity, storage location, vendor and lot number.

In subsequent batch processing within the production process, this lot number is then captured by a mobile terminal device. From then on, the supply data of all processed raw materials are inextricably linked to their original production batches. This means that finished goods can be clearly allocated to a particular production cycle.

Allocating the raw material batches to the recipes stored in the CSB-System and seamlessly tracking the production batch throughout the manufacturing process up to the final packaged product facilitates full supply chain traceability. At the push of a button vendors of the raw materials used as well as the end users can be identified.

In addition, as the materials pass through the process, the weigh labellers and labelling devices also receive this information, allowing the traceability data to be coded onto the packs as 2D barcodes.

The data is then transmitted to an internet platform, which is dubbed mynetfair. Shoppers can then access this to quickly gather information on a particular product, simply by scanning or photographing its code with their smartphone or PC.