Sanwa Food Group is growing more than produce! Sanwa Growers started growing and harvesting Chinese cabbages and melons with just 5 employees in 1981. Today, Sanwa provides a diverse selection of fresh produce and multicultural flavors to both retail and wholesale clients from Miami to Atlanta. In Tampa they have a large packinghouse and indoor farmer’s market, which is open seven days a week to the public with a wholesale club style retail experience.
Tampa neighbor Surveillance Technology, Inc. (STI) excels at tailoring solutions for complex needs. The Sanwa project had a few universal requirements, with high quality cameras to cover all entries, building exteriors and parking areas. There was also a need for typical warehouse coverage on the docks and HVAC. Footage from the outbound product staging areas can be reviewed later to verified what actually was in a particular shipment. Additional cameras were required in areas unique to food service. For example, the cameras installed inside a freezer require the ability to withstand extreme temperatures.
In all, 42 cameras were used to cover the entire property. These 4K 8-megapixel IP cameras are equipped with H.265 compression at each camera, as opposed to the compression taking place at a central recorder. They are connected to three 16 channel 4K Network Video Recorders (NVR) with 320 MB throughput each. Putting an 8 megapixel camera onto a NVR that takes in only 180 MB per second would quickly overload the recorder. It would be like trying to exhale through a coffee stirrer. Many security providers solve for this by lowering the frame rate or the resolution of the cameras, knowingly reducing the quality of the images in order to manage the data going to the recorder. STI designs the system thoughtfully from the outset to optimize the result.
Sanwa staff can view a live feed from all of the cameras from one digital platform. The master administrator controls who can access each camera. Owners can view all cameras, while supervisors have permission to oversee the areas for which they are uniquely accountable. Each authorized user can manage their personal viewing preferences for convenient monitoring. STI plans to partner again with Sanwa in the future on their retail and satellite locations, which can also be added to the same platform.
The NVR was installed with an integrated power over ethernet (POE) switch, so the IP cameras send data to the recorders over six thousand feet of CAT 6 ethernet cable. Without the integrated POE switch, all of this footage would use bandwidth across Sanwa’s everyday network, competing with the demands of their computers and printers on the normal network they use to get business done. By connecting the cameras directly to the NVR, Surveillance Technology’s integrated POE switch solution circumvents the network and lets Sanwa’s other resources perform at their best. This is one of the many ways Surveillance Technology adds value, understanding how to maximize world class tools.
