Emerson Launches New Device for In-Transit Produce Monitoring

This month’s Asia Fruit Logistica, which was held on September 4–6 at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong, saw the launch of Emerson’s new GO Bluetooth Plus Logger for temperature and humidity monitoring of perishable items during transit. Produce Report was in attendance at the event and took the opportunity to learn more about the device from Emerson’s Gerd Uitdewilligen, Director International Support, and Ivan Fullin, Director Cargo Solutions Asia.

The GO Bluetooth Plus Logger is a Bluetooth-enabled monitoring device that tracks the temperature, humidity and time throughout the shipping process. In addition to the external air temperature, the device permits monitoring of the internal temperature of the produce using one of two probe options: a short probe for items such as apples, oranges and stone fruit, and a needle probe for grapes, berries and smaller fruit. This parameter is especially useful for compliance with import protocols that require monitoring of the pulp temperature during transit to ensure produce quality.

The probe and device remain with the fruit during precooling and shipment, taking accurate measurements of the temperature (−30 °C to 60 °C) and relative humidity (0–100% RH) every five minutes for up to 60 days. Upon arrival of the shipment, the obtained data can then be read wirelessly using Bluetooth-enabled Android and iOS smartphones and tablets via the GO BT Reader mobile app, which is available in a number of major languages including English, French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish. The data can be read at a range of up to approximately 30 meters, avoiding the need to open multiple containers and cartons as in the case of traditional loggers and thereby increasing efficiency and convenience for exporters and importers alike.

The app stores historical data and provides detailed statistics, including the minimum and maximum temperatures, mean kinetic temperature and humidity for each shipment throughout the entire transit process. The app can also be configured to generate alerts when the environmental parameters have exceeded the allowable range for the specific produce item. Finally, the data can be saved as PDF or CSV files for convenient sharing by e-mail.

In a press release announcing the product, Frank Landwehr, vice president and general manager of Emerson Cargo Solutions, stated “This newest product with probe functionality provides our customers the extra level of temperature monitoring they are seeking in a logger. The simplicity of this small, compact logger coupled with the efficient use of Bluetooth technology makes this a user-friendly solution.”

Images: Emerson