Please visit the new home of Majikthise at bigthink.com/blogs/focal-point.

« Meet New York City's bedbug expert | Main | Dustin Lance Black champions gay rights in Oscar acceptance speech for Milk screenplay »

February 23, 2009

Watermelon-tracking technology


Watermelon Fishie, originally uploaded by EricGjerde.

More watermelons will soon be individually traceable, according to Progressive Grocer magazine:


The HarvestMark solution gives individual watermelons a unique identity that links to growing, harvest, packing, and supply chain information. The HarvestMark Codes associated with each product can be entered into a Web portal for instant trace-back and trace-forward

I wonder if consumers will be able to access this information. I may be alone on this...but I would get a kick out a website where I could punch in my watermelon's tracking number to see exactly how this particular fruit got from the farm to my local grocery store. What if all groceries had this kind of individual unit traceability? Giving consumers that kind of information could redefine the project of eating locally. What if you could punch in the numbers on your Blackberry as you shopped? You could choose products that were shipped shorter distances.

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c61e653ef01127905b5ef28a4

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Watermelon-tracking technology :

Comments

Oh, I'm sure the growers would call it "trade secrets" simply so you couldn't see that your fruit was coming from El Salvadore. Just like you can't shop online and find out what country anything is made in.

Type in the code of your blackberries on your Blackberry? That would be cool.

This is an interesting idea. It is one of many potential strengths to location specific information. Primarily developing these so that machines can provide the information when requested.

I just want to know who's ruining fruit salads with those god-damned little melon balls.

The comments to this entry are closed.