Innovative technology utilizes microscopic, edible bar codes that can be applied directly onto foods to make them more secure, safer, and less expensive. Invisible, biodegradable markers that can carry up to the amount of information in a bar code andthat can be placed directly on or within edible materials could provide several benefits to the food industry. First, they could be used to make food more secure, by providing proof at any point along the production, storage, and distribution chain thata food product is what the label on its package says it is. Second, they could be used to make food safer, by providing similar proof that a food product has received a particular treatment at a particular time. Third, they could be used to make food less expensive, by replacing "one step forward, one step back" traceability protocols with reach-through and real-time documentation of the origin and subsequent history of a product. This article describes a technology we have developed (Nightingale et al., 2003) that accomplishes this.
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