Maintaining a reliable and sustainable cold chain for perishable goods is a challenging endeavor, especially for milk, cheese and other dairy products, which face unique temperature fluctuation issues.

The dairy supply chain is particularly vulnerable to challenges related to maintaining freshness compared to other food and beverage sectors. Even minor temperature changes — such as fluctuations of just 1 degree — can drastically impact product shelf life.

Current methods often fail to account for unit level variations within the same shipment or pallet, resulting in dairy products sometimes having half or double their expected shelf life.

Although there are regulatory guidelines in place and dairy industry leaders are actively addressing longstanding perishability issues associated with temperature-controlled storage and refrigerated transport, spoilage and safety concerns continue to persist. Factors such as seasonal temperature spikes, malfunctions in refrigeration equipment, transport delays, power outages and severe weather can all lead to significant product losses for dairy producers.

That’s where sensors come in. Sensors play a crucial role in the dairy industry, monitoring various parameters to ensure product quality, safety and operational efficiency.

For instance, sensors are used to continuously monitor the temperature of dairy products throughout the supply chain, from production to storage and transportation, which helps prevent spoilage and better ensures product safety.

Sensors also are utilized to monitor the quality of milk and other dairy products by detecting changes in composition or spoilage indicators. For example, they can identify the presence of contaminants or abnormal bacterial levels.

There also are sensors that help monitor moisture levels in storage facilities and transportation vehicles, some that measure the pH levels of dairy products during processing, and flow sensors that track the quantity and consistency of milk and other dairy products during production.

Measuring freshness

Evigence, a Hoboken, NJ-based sensor company, offers its Evigence Freshness Management Platform, which can be calibrated to almost any product in the cold chain, including dairy.

The Evigence Freshness Management Platform addresses key supply chain challenges such as temperature control, shelf life management and traceability by providing dairy companies with end-to-end cold chain control.

“Our FreshSense sensors accurately track the freshness of perishables by monitoring time and temperature in real-time,” said Oria Malka, vice president of sales for Evigence. “Our sensors are calibrated for the shelf life of the products it monitors, and as such to various dairy products.”

FreshSense sensors simulate the specific product’s degradation through a chemical reaction, which is captured by a camera-operated device. The data is then analyzed by a machine learning model to provide precise freshness metrics and estimate the remaining shelf life based on the unique parameters of the product.

“We empower food companies to monitor at case, or even unit, level from inception all the way to consumption,” Malka said. “This ability did not exist until now.”

The company’s AI-powered dashboard and real-time insights allow dairy managers to quickly identify improvement opportunities across their supply chain based on the true freshness of their products, facilitating faster decision-making.

“The dashboard provides trends and highlights, guiding users on where to focus their resources and attention, to ensure they deliver dairy products of the highest quality,” Malka said.

The addition of Evigence’s Automated Early Supply Chain Scanning to the Evigence Freshness Management Platform added a critical layer for early detection of dairy product freshness concerns. With built-in automatic data capturing (ADC) technology, Evigence streamlines traceability from initial production lines without adding more manual labor needs.

Production teams can now focus on their primary tasks while Evigence measures and tracks freshness from the initial production lines through to delivery to guarantee optimal quality.

“Our goal is to reduce freshness loss at the unit level at every step of the supply chain,” Malka said. “Evigence can reduce waste and improve freshness in the dairy supply chain in many ways, but a primary example is how our real-time freshness management insights inform better decisions for the Real Remaining Shelf Life (RSL) of each product.”

For instance, its multiscan feature, used in distribution centers, leverages augmented reality to highlight which cases of products should advance further in the cold chain faster due to shorter expected shelf life, even if still within standards. This real-time tool enhances freshness by ensuring products reach the market based on their true freshness, reducing waste and minimizing customer complaints.

“Our advanced analytics also provide dairy companies a way to access easy to understand visual dashboards and heat map visualizations so dairy supply chain managers can immediately identify the freshest products and potentially problematic products,” Malka said. “The weekly data trend reports also help them identify important patterns across regions, divisions, supply chain partners, product groups, etc., so they can find and fix inefficiencies and avoid food loss.”

Other top players

For more than three decades, Baumer has been the partner of leading global dairy groups and traditional craft dairies, supplying sensors that consider the unique conditions in which the industry deals, including pipeline vibration, condensation during cooled production, and heat in the sterilization process.

“A growing number of product variants and sudden changes in demand are some of the latest challenges in industrial and hygiene applications, and meeting these demands calls for flexibility in terms of system control,” a spokesperson for the company said.

The ability of Baumer’s sensors to adapt to applications such as the reliable measurement of limit values is crucial in this respect, efficiently controlling processes involving frequent media changeovers or accumulation, and even implementing media differentiation, using the example of level detection.

Peter Barrie, product management director for Sun Prairie, Wis.-based Sani-Matic, noted the company typically uses flow, pressure, conductivity and temperature sensors within its clean-in-place (CIP) and clean-out-of-place (COP) equipment, such as the SaniCab P335.

“The sensors are integrated into our equipment for both proper control of the system, but also for recording time, flow, conductivity and temperature data, all critical cleaning information data that is typically required by the FDA as a record,” he said.

Sani-Matic developed SaniTrend Cloud, a cloud-based software that interfaces between equipment and an online portal.

“This critical sensor data is packaged up and sent to the cloud, where cleaning cycle information and data is stored for review and later retrieval as needed,” Barrie said. “The cloud-based software allows for efficiency gains in the industry by capturing all of the critical data automatically with no paper or manual based intervention. This allows for more time focused on getting back into dairy production.”

Sani-Matic also offers a standalone Digital Process Recorder (DPR), powered by SaniTrend Cloud, that is basically an electronic, cloud-based replacement for a traditional paper chart recorder.

“It takes sensor data — up to 16 digital inputs and eight analog inputs — and packages and transmits the data to the cloud-based portal where data is securely stored,” Barrie said.

Burkert USA Corporation offers bore magmeter sensors, as well as FLOWave with its Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) technology for flow measurement in the dairy industry. It also has pH and conductivity sensors for analytical measurement.

“SAW and magmeter technology provide high precision dosing and filling while communicating directly with our smart process valve control heads,” said Charles Nobile, senior technical sales support engineer for sensors at the Huntersville, NC-based company. “In the dairy world, where compactness, smart communication, plant footprint and reliability are common concerns, our sensors and valves provide efficiency and higher yields with our process modularity.”

Parameter measurements are recorded and AO/DO signals are transmitted based on this measurement.

Looking ahead

Sensor companies are working closely with major dairy providers to continue enhancing quality and reduce waste.

“We are continually expanding our machine learning models and trend analyses to provide the best possible insights across the cold chain,” Malka said. “As we further develop our sophisticated machine learning algorithms, we aim to provide solutions that can empower our users to be even more proactive in the future by predicting spoilage and quality degradation before it occurs. We want to create a new focus on freshness across the food and dairy industry to ensure safe, high-quality products.”

With the dairy industry, every degree matters. The commitment to leveraging cutting-edge sensor technology not only promises to transform the dairy supply chain, but also ensures that consumers can enjoy fresher, safer and higher-quality products, ultimately redefining standards in food safety and sustainability.