CCP Technologies joins forces with Vodafone to benefit food industry customers

CCP Technologies (ASX: CT1) has entered into a global services agreement with Vodafone to utilise its Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) devices across the telco’s network for the benefit of its customers in the food industry.

The agreement strengthens ties between CCP and Vodafone and builds on the collaboration formed in May when CCP installed NB-IoT connectivity points at Sydney airport using the same network.

Additionally, the agreement enables CCP to implement solutions which will enhance “farm-to-fork” cold chain monitoring by the food industry, with continuous through-chain critical control point data capture, real time analytics and business intelligence.

Critical control points are the points within a supply chain where any failure of standard operating procedures has the potential to cause serious harm to people, businesses and bottom lines.

Standard critical control points include temperature, energy, environment (for example air and water quality, acidity, gases and acoustics) and movement.

CCP chief executive officer Michael White welcomed the Vodafone agreement as a solution to food industry disruptions.

“Seamless cold chain monitoring has been a universal food industry goal for over a decade,” Mr White said.

“With the convergence of [new] technologies [such as NB-IoT], a new revolution in supply chain management [in the food industry] is beginning to emerge.”

How NB-IoT technology works

NB-IoT is a low power wide area network (LPWAN) used to wirelessly connect millions of devices that have low bandwidth requirements.

Data from these devices is delivered to CCP’s big data cloud platform where it is analysed to deliver business intelligence.

Customers access the intelligence through web and mobile dashboards, and receive real-time alerts via SMS, email and push notifications.

NB-IoT optimises device power consumption for CCP’s customers within the food industry, many of which work with industrial coolrooms and refrigeration facilities located in basements and require the deep-indoor signal penetration offered by the technology.

At mid-morning, CCP shares were up 30.77% to $0.017.