Timestrip Plus™ is an accurate, yet easy-to-use device which monitors how long a product has been held above a critical temperature

For some time sensors have been able to show immediate exposure to a critical temperature, but this on its own doesn’t indicate whether a product is deteriorating. Product quality can often be compromised by cumulative exposure to elevated temperatures during transit and storage. What you need to know is how long your product has spent above a defined temperature.

Now Timestrip Plc – the AIM-listed developer of smart packaging devices – has launched Timestrip Plus – the first, truly cost-effective and simple to use indicator which shows the amount of time a product has spent above its threshold temperature.

Timestrip Plus is designed to operate as a cold chain tool for temperature sensitive products in the pharmaceutical, healthcare and food sectors, where the financial and safety consequences of temperature breaches are considerable.  Timestrip Plus is easy to use, does not require special conditioning before activation, and is easy to interpret.

Market acceptance
Timestrip’s distributor, Fingerprint Data Systems UK, through one of its key partners, has already secured trial orders of Timestrip Plus in two large UK hospital sites. Focusing on the pharmacy supply chain, Timestrip Plus is being used to ensure that products released from the hospital pharmacy do not spend excessive periods of time above the correct temperature.

Cold chain benefits
The cost consequences of temperature breaches in food, pharmaceutical and chemical cold chains are high. The loss of a consignment because of improper handling or transport can be measured in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds.

Timestrip Plus indicators provide the ideal solution, offering significant advantages as a temperature-controlled or ‘cold’ supply chain tool by reducing product wastage and offering high levels of customer satisfaction. They also offer unparalleled flexibility. Supplied in an adhesive label format they are ideal for applying directly to products or packaging.

Being friendly on the eye, Timestrip Plus indicators are also easy to read. And unlike traditional more complicated solutions, they are highly accurate and straightforward to use, being activated by simply squeezing a bubble on top of the indicator. A viewing window shows the indicator is active by changing colour from white to blue. As long as the product is held at, or under, the safe temperature, the colour does not progress. Once the temperature threshold is breached, the colour moves across a scale, showing how long it has been above that temperature, allowing the user to take appropriate remedial action.

However, on its return trip to the safe temperature, the colour stops progressing. In this way, Timestrip Plus can record multiple excursions above a safe temperature, allowing the user to take the appropriate remedial action.

Says Timestrip Plc’s Joint CEO, Reuben Isbitsky: “Because there is no ambiguity over product life, errors are therefore reduced. You can also save on cost by cutting the amount of product thrown away.”

Leading edge technology
Developed from Timestrip Plc’s patented technology platform, Timestrip Plus not only shows that one or more pre-defined temperatures have been exceeded, it also registers the cumulative time over which a temperature breach has occurred so you can see instantly whether a product is past its best, or safe to use.

In this way, it is possible to see at a glance how long a product has spent above its safe storage temperature, even if it was at some stage returned to the correct temperature.

Adds Timestrip’s Isbitsky: “The impact that the raised temperature will have on the product, shortening its life, is immediately apparent, helping to decide whether the quality of a product has been irreversibly affected.”

Timestrip Plus offers a simple and inexpensive tool to easily monitor products. Its cost is low enough for Timestrip Plus to be placed on every unit or case. In this way, a compromised product can be segregated accurately, saving an entire shipment which might otherwise be discarded because of suspected temperature abuse.

A range of standard products are available, although Timestrip Plus can be customised for virtually any application’s temperature requirements. It can work under a variety of conditions, from ambient environments to refrigerated, frozen – or even extremely high temperatures, depending on the customer’s requirements.

There are two stock products currently available for two temperature thresholds: 12º C (54º F) for chilled products and 0º C (32º F) for frozen products. Additional products catering for different temperature thresholds will be launched later in the year.