A better example of diffusion is the movement of honey into the market
place. A producer sells his/her honey to two or three packers in one or two
countries. The packers blend the honey from a variety of producers and send
it to retail stores and bakeries all over the place.

With the increasing risk of contaminated honey reaching the market, it is
in everyones' interest to have a system that can quickly track the product
back to the primary producer.

The beef industry in Canada is in the process of implementing a system
where each producer is required to attach a bar code to the ear of each
animal at birth. If an animal should test positive for mad cow disease(KJ)
at slaughter,the bar code will allow government officials to immediatly
identify the herd from which it originated. This not only helps protect the
consumer, but may prevent financial catastrophe in the beef industry.

I would be interested to know what procedures various countries have in
place to track honey to its origin. If a bakery had customers falling ill,
and it was determined that the cause was the honey used in their muffins,
how long would it take to pinpoint the source, assuming their honey
supplier packs ten million pounds per year from a variety of sources?

Producer-packers in Canada are encouraged to put lot numbers on each barrel
packed but I don't know anyone who does so. Is there an inexpensive machine
that will apply permanant codes to glass and plastic? This would be much
more convient than making up seperate labels.

Ted