SIRA Technologies Food Sentinel System Thermal Barcode for Packaging
California based SIRA Technologies have just created a revolutionary packaging barcode label that could change grocery store experiences forever.  With help from researchers at the University of Rhode Island,  SIRA has developed a barcode label that can actually indicate whether your food has been contaminated or is expired.
If you’ve ever wondered if the milk you just bought is expired, or if the ground chuck you bought to grill out has been out too long, or tampered with, a solution is finally here.  SIRA will incorporate a newly designed ink into these new barcode labels, this ink is invisible under normal circumstances, however, if tampering or other factors are present, the ink will turn the barcode bright red, and rendering the product and UPC unscannable. 

With so many cases of contaminated foods, and people getting sick all over the country, the time has come to fix the problem. By adding a synthetic polymer into the ink, the ink detects pathogen levels in food, and can detect contamination in foods. This now patented system is called the “Food Sentinel System”.
This new breakthrough in food packaging could prevent thousands from falling ill, and only costs about four cents to place on food item barcode labels. With such a low cost, companies will not have to alter prices in order to keep clean and healthy foods on the shelves.
The idea for this technology is not new, and in fact during the 1990’s a cookware company sought to design and produce polymers that could be added into products to make their colors change if they were too hot to touch. This heat sensitive material was designed to turn from red to yellow at 180 degrees Fahrenheit ( the temperature at which humans can suffer a burn) and then back to red once the object cooled.
Although this polymer generated a lot of interest, no companies at the time were willing to incur the costs of refining these polymers for their own uses. The breakthrough for the Food Sentinel System came when an irreversible polymer was discovered, one that would not switch back to it’s original color. That’s when SIRA technologies took an interest.
This breakthrough technology in the food and label industry is sure to show up soon at grocers near you. Just think – you’ll never have to check to see if your milk is expired ever again. Stay updated, as SIRA Technologies is always working on innovative products to improve our quality of life.