IFCO launches TRLLN asset-tracking platform

IFCO has launched TRLLN, a standalone Tracking-as-a-Service venture designed to help companies monitor large networks of reusable and mobile assets without installing fixed scanning infrastructure across the supply chain.

The technology was developed inside IFCO and tested across the company’s reusable packaging network, which includes more than 400 million reusable packaging containers in circulation worldwide. TRLLN now takes that capability beyond IFCO’s own customer base, targeting pallets, crates, containers, parts, industrial equipment, and other moving assets.

The platform uses active Bluetooth Low Energy labels attached directly to assets, combined with cloud software, managed connectivity, and AI analytics. Because the labels travel with the asset, tracking data can be generated across multi-partner networks where fixed scanners, gates, and facility infrastructure are often uneven.

TRLLN is designed to show where an asset is, whether it is in the right condition, whether it has reached the right destination, and what its movement history reveals. The system can be accessed through a dashboard or integrated into customer systems through API connectivity.

Reusable transport packaging is already embedded in fruit, vegetable, meat, fish, seafood, bakery, dairy, egg, and deli flows. These networks depend on high asset utilisation, rapid turnaround, reliable sanitation, and predictable availability. Poor visibility can create avoidable pool-size increases, asset losses, manual reconciliation work, and inventory distortions.

Cold-chain monitoring is another use case. IFCO has linked TRLLN to temperature monitoring in cold chains, inventory optimisation, loss reduction, asset utilisation monitoring, supply-chain transparency, and digital product passport implementation. Those functions are becoming more important as chilled and fresh supply chains face tighter service expectations, labour constraints, and pressure to document product movement.

Food distribution has become increasingly exposed to disruption across labour, transport, and service levels. When planned Morrisons disruption involving Eddie Stobart drivers was called off, the episode still underlined how dependent food supply chains are on multiple operational layers staying aligned. Asset tracking will not remove transport or labour risk, but it can reduce uncertainty around where critical containers, crates, and pallets are sitting when systems come under pressure.

Reusable packaging systems have a particular visibility problem. A single-use pack moves one way and disappears into waste or recycling channels. A reusable asset must circulate repeatedly between producer, consolidator, distributor, retailer, cleaning point, and pool operator. Each handover creates potential loss, delay, misuse, contamination risk, or data gaps.

The business case depends heavily on scale. Traditional tracking systems can become expensive where assets are low-cost, numerous, and constantly moving. IFCO is offering the service through an annual subscription model based on the number of tracked assets, with an infrastructure-light approach intended to make asset-level visibility viable across larger pools.

The immediate operational value will be measured in availability and exception management. If crates are delayed, sitting idle, diverted, or exposed to temperature issues, the data must reach operators in time to change decisions. Visibility that arrives too late becomes audit evidence rather than operating control.

Packaging is also becoming part of supply-chain infrastructure rather than a secondary consumable. Reusable packaging, pooled assets, and digitally visible transport items carry cost, cleaning, repair, traceability, and utilisation requirements. The container becomes part of the production and distribution system, with its own data trail and operating discipline.

TRLLN enters that market with the benefit of IFCO’s fresh-food logistics background. The platform’s broader industrial ambitions may take it into automotive, healthcare, aviation, construction, parcel delivery, and 3PL networks, but fresh food remains one of the clearest tests. It is high-volume, time-sensitive, temperature-sensitive, and unforgiving of missing assets. Better visibility will not make fresh food logistics simple, but it can make waste, loss, and delay harder to overlook.