The Freedonia Group, a leading international business research company, is forecasting a 15 percent annual increase in demand for food safety products in China through 2013. Demand increase is expected to be spurred by a continued expansion of food and beverage output coupled with a greater focus on food safety and supply chain security in response to the Food Safety Law introduced in 2009. Freedonia predicts that the strongest gains in the food safety sector will be in the tracking product segment “with demand for RFID and other smart labels and tags, as well tracking software systems, benefiting from concerns over supply chain security,” according to their press release. The group also predicts that large gains will be made in diagnostic testing products, which will be driven by “the rising numbers of food processors and government agency tests for pathogenic and non-pathogenic contaminants.” Photo courtesy Deborah S. Kolb.