60mm rain over night, but no damage. Baume’ may have slowed, but will test tomorrow.
Tracing Food from Farm to Fork - RFID Journal
Thought this might be of interest to our Ecovore network
More than a dozen colleges and companies have joined a consortium under the guidance of the University of Wolverhampton, to pilot RFID technology as it tracks the movements of fish, wine, pork and cheese through production and on to retailers.
A European project overseen by the University of Wolverhampton and a consortium of universities, technical institutes and commercial entities is determining how radio frequency identification technology can benefit the perishable-goods supply chain. The project, known as Farm to Fork (F2F), was launched last year, with half of its funding provided by the European Commission’s ICT Policy Support Program—aimed at stimulating innovation and competitiveness—which includes a half-dozen pilots throughout Europe to track pork, fish, wine and cheese through the production process and on to stores.
The project’s objective is to determine how well RFID can be used to improve supply chain visibility, provide authentication of food’s origin, reduce the amount of waste due to spoilage or other supply chain problems (by tracking environmental conditions), and increase the efficiency of the supply chain itself. The pilots, which all employ EPC Gen 2 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) passive RFID tags (including Confidex’s Halo tag; UPM RFID’s ShortDipole, DogBone, Web and Hammer models; and Alien Technology’s Squiggle tag) and readers, are designed to determine whether the benefits gained from the RFID data will provide a return on investment for users. In August of this year, the project’s participants began deploying the RFID technology, which will remain operational until August 2012. At that time, the participants and the university will review the results, calculate the ways in which RFID technology may have improved the supply chain, and publish their findings on the Farm to Fork Web site.
The view from our window, Gajon, Nimes
Pont du Garde, Nimes. Roman aquaduct built in 1st C. AD. This place is amazing. Lots of Roman buildings: 50 km aquaduct, collosseum, public buildings. Ceasar Augustus used Mines as his base, rather than Rome. Aquaduct runs for 50lm bringing water to Mines.
Mr Chabrier, Frederica, and son. Domaine Chabrier Fils
Domaine Chabrier Fils (Sons)
We visited this winery yesterday and after tasting their white, rose, and rouge wines were treated to a tour of the production area. It is just at the end of vintage here and there were quite a few vats of wine going through secondary fermentation.
Mr Chabrier and his wife Frederica were incredibly hospitable and Mr Chabrier gave us tastings from the vats. Wonderful. It is a large winery, established by his grandfather in 1925.
We bought some white wines for our hosts (Alan and Chantal) here in Nimes and Mr Chabrier gave us 2 bottles of his 2010 premium red. The Vin De Pays Duche’ d’Uzes - Rouge. We drank one bottle last night over tea and will bring the other one home for a special memory.
They seem to specialise in the “ready to drink” style here, unlike St Emilion, and certainly do it well.
All these little/substantial villages. Lots of buildings dating from 16th century.
Barrel room, huge underground limestone cellar, St. Emilion
