Horse Mackerel Traceability
"Where did this Aji (horse mackerel) come from?" If you are a Sushi fan, you might have asked this question in the past. I sometimes fish Aji on Mars in the Nintendo game Animal Crossing. But, that shouldn't be were yours came from.
[Aji aka Horse Mackerel]
In the last couple of years, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan have been encouraging the uses of RFID and 2D barcodes for implementing fish traceability systems. There have been efforts to implement systems for tracking shell fish (Awabi), salmon and tuna using RFID. QR Codes are also used for some fish traceability projects. For example, the project by DoCoMo Sentsu, a subsidiary company of NTT DoCoMo and Marine Fishery Systems Association used QR codes in a unique way:
After the fish are cooked in a restaurant, dishes are served to customers together with the 2D barcode. Customers can view the encoded information using their mobile phones before, during, or after enjoying the dishes.
This year the ministry selected other kinds of fish for their pilot tests: Aji (horse mackerel), Saba (chub mackerel), Buri (yellow tail), Hamachi (young yellow tail), and Maguro (tuna). (By the way, this website has pictures of many kinds of fish in Japan.) The Aji pilot is taking place in the city of Hamada, Saba in Nagasaki prefecture, Buri in Mie prefecture, Hamachi in Kagoshima prefecture and Maguro in Kanagawa prefecture.
The San-In Chuo Shinpo recently reported on the Aji traceability pilot that will soon take place in Hamada. 2D barcodes are used to manage the data related to fish boat operations (leaving/arriving at a harbor), fatness of fish, etc. The barcodes are pasted on boxes that can hold about 5kg of fish and the boxes are sent to a fish market in Tokyo and then to retail stores. At retail stores, consumers can use camera phones, in-store touch screen computers, or personal computers (at home) to take a look at traceability information. Eight digit product codes and QR codes are attached to fish packages.
One of the goals of this Aji pilot is to test if such traceability systems can help build a brand image that makes consumers feel safer.
via The Sin-In Chuo Shimpo, January 15, 2006. < QR Code Blog