A wireless electronic monitoring system for securing milk from farm to processor

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services have targeted bulk food contamination as a focus for attention. Milk transport falls into three of the 17 targeted National Infrastructure Protection Plan sectors including agriculture-food, public health and commercial facilities. The current manual methods of securing milk are paper intensive and prone to errors. The bulk milk transportation sector requires a security enhancement that will both reduce recording errors and enable normal transport activities to occur while providing security against unauthorized access. Our group has developed a milk transport security system which is an electromechanical access control and communication system that assures the secure transport of milk, milk samples, milk data, and security data between locations, and specifically between dairy farms, transfer stations, receiving stations, and milk plants. It includes a security monitoring system installed on the milk transport tank, a hand held device, optional printers, data server, and security evaluation software. The system operates automatically and requires minimal or no attention by the bulk milk hauler/sampler. The system is compatible with existing milk transport infrastructure, and has the support of the milk producers, milk transportation companies, milk marketing agencies, and dairy processors. The security protocol developed is applicable for transport of other bulk foods both nationally and internationally.