Marks and Spencer has said it is putting the finishing touches on infrastructure for a market leading electronically controlled chilled supply chain. It is reaching the end of a five year period of tests on electronic tags on all chilled trays, which reduce the time taken to read a pallet load by 80%. M&S logistics controller Keith Mahoney said: "We will be ready with the technology next autumn, it will give us a leading edge supply chain model for all our chilled produce all the way along the chain, from producer to store end." The 5cm x 5cm recyclable radio frequency identification tags being adopted by M&S cost 50p each, cheap in comparison to the £1.50 price of similar tags on the market. Tags will be put on reusable plastic crates by M&S chilled and fresh producers and manufacturers as chilled goods are packed and passed through the distribution centres, with another scan as goods enter the store. M&S has a big practical advantage over the major multiples in implementing tagging from source to store because it only uses own brand suppliers, whereas supermarkets would have to integrate their systems in a plethora of branded suppliers' operations. Sainsbury trialled similar RFID tags on chilled crates from distribution centre for a two year period finishing two years ago, but has not proceeded with a wider roll out. Tesco is currently researching similar tagging initiatives with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. RFID tags store information about the products or crates to which they are attached and can be interrogated or updated automatically by radio signal. They enable the location, history and status of every product in the warehouse indeed the entire supply chain to be known with precision. {{NEWS }}

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