A team of academics is creating a device that will be able to tell when food is going to go off, potentially enabling food suppliers, logistics firms and retailers to minimise waste and enhance the cost and carbon efficiency of their supply chains.

The system, being developed by Manchester University and agri-business research firm Syngenta, will make it easier for retailers and food producers to decide whether to ship boxes of food across long distances, the researchers claimed.

"You have a certain amount of waste in the field, but a frightening amount of waste when the crop is transported," said Andrew Coker, head of corporate affairs at Syngenta. "Part of the waste issue is that sell-by dates are a matter of sticking your finger in the air."

The RFID sensor will measure the temperature inside boxes of perishable products such as fruit and vegetables. If temperatures vary too greatly, the perishables become stressed, which reduces their life expectancy. The data from the RFID will be read at various points in the supply chain, such as warehouse entry and exit points.

The information will then be fed back to a central software program which conducts calculations about the food's life expectancy, and then informs retailers who can factor the information into their supply chain management processes and decide whether or not to ship the product.

"The sensor will say that a product picked on this date, stored in these conditions, will be safe to put in the store at this point in time," said Coker.

A prototype "informatic model" will be available within 18 to 24 months, according to Bruce Grieve, director of the Syngenta Sensors University Innovation Centre at Manchester University. The team will then focus on producing a battery-free passive RFID version of the product with low-cost hardware for wider deployment. A third generation model would use a version of the RFID produced using a printer for even lower costs.