Nutritional Substance Tracking System for Supply Chain Traceability
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
The food and beverage industry lacks a systematic approach to track, maintain, and communicate the nutritional content of products across the entire supply chain, leading to consumers being unaware of the origin, preservation, and changes in nutritional values, which affects their ability to make informed choices and industry efficiency.
Innovation Solution
A system that collects, transmits, and stores information on the source, preservation, and transformation of nutritional substances, allowing consumers to query compliance with their requirements through a smartphone application, using visual, audible, tactile, or olfactory mechanisms, and dynamically adapting transformation processes to minimize degradation and improve nutritional value.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If the food and beverage industry operates as separate silos (growers, packagers, processors, distributors, retailers, preparers) with minimal information sharing, then each entity can focus on its specific function, but consumers lack access to traceability information regarding creation, origin, preservation, processing, preparation, and consumption of nutritional substances
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the food supply chain into distinct functional modules (creation module, preservation module, transformation module, conditioning module, consumption module), each with dedicated information collection and transmission capabilities. This segmentation allows information to be gathered at each stage without requiring complete system integration, reducing overall complexity while maintaining traceability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary information transmission system that connects the siloed industry segments. This intermediary collects, standardizes, and transmits nutritional substance information across the supply chain, enabling consumer access to traceability data without requiring direct integration between all industry participants.
2Quantity of substance
If the industry focuses on increasing caloric content to reduce starvation, then energy availability improves, but nutritional content (vitamins, minerals, proteins) is maintained as a lower priority
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms where nutritional substance information is collected at each supply chain stage and transmitted back to previous stages. This feedback enables entities to adjust their processes to maintain or improve nutritional content quality while meeting caloric requirements, as each entity can see the impact of their actions on final product quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables dynamic adjustment of processing parameters based on collected nutritional information. Entities can modify their processes in real-time to optimize both caloric content and nutritional quality, transforming the static approach to food production into a dynamic, data-driven system.
3Manufacturing precision
If each silo industry maintains or increases nutritional content of products they handle, then local nutritional quality improves, but there is no system-wide coordination allowing management of nutritional content across the entire cycle from creation to consumption
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal information transmission system that serves multiple functions: tracking nutritional content, monitoring processing conditions, verifying compliance, and enabling consumer queries. This single system handles all information needs across the supply chain, providing system-wide coordination without requiring separate specialized systems for each function.
4Productivity
If consumers demand higher nutritional content and pay higher prices, then market incentive for quality improvement exists, but the industry lacks the capability to verify and communicate nutritional values accurately
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by collecting and verifying nutritional substance information at each supply chain stage before the product reaches the consumer. This advance collection and verification ensures accurate nutritional data is available when consumers make purchasing decisions, enabling them to pay premium prices with confidence in the claimed nutritional values.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed herein is a transformation system for at least one component of a single or multi-component nutritional substance. The transformation system obtains information regarding the nutritional substance to be transformed, the desired transformation, and the desired properties, including nutritional content, of the transformed nutritional substance, and dynamically modifies the transformation in response to this information. Also disclosed herein is an information system that enables the rapid determination of a nutritional substance's compliance, or non-compliance, with a consumer's nutritional substance requirements.