One of the tragic examples of how food contamination impacts consumers can be seen in the recent milk debacle that sickened hundreds of thousands of children – and killed several – in China. Sometimes, contamination happens by accident. Other times, it is intentional as was the case with the Chinese milk. Supply chain companies must be ever vigilant with their own internal security protocols while the food industry races to develop a universal traceability system.
As the food distribution supply chain becomes increasingly globalized, there is a heightened risk of contamination. Potential poisoning of the country’s food supply by extremists, food counterfeiting, and the spread of natural contaminants are top priorities for the food and produce industry. The Produce Traceability Initiative will inject a higher level of security, improve produce traceback, and instill accountability throughout the entire supply chain.
The Produce Traceability Initiative And Supply Chain Traceback
To aggressively protect the public health, the Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) has mandated a series of deadlines by which all supply chain firms must adopt standardized traceback procedures. As mentioned last week, by the end of the first quarter 2009, every supply chain brand owner – from growers to delivery companies – must acquire GS1-issued prefixes and 14-digit GTIN numbers. The goal of the Produce Traceability Initiative is to improve the traceback for each lot of food and produce as it makes its way throughout the supply chain.
Current traceability systems are often exclusive to each individual supply chain company. A grower maintains traceability protocols that are disconnected from those used by a storage facility down the supply chain. The storage facility’s protocols are typically disconnected from the trucking company which delivers individual lots to retailers.
That makes isolating contaminants which have found their way into the food supply extremely difficult, time-intensive, and expensive. Each day that passes without identifying and containing the root cause represents additional risk to consumers. Because the food industry lacks closed-system standardized traceback, expensive wide-scale product recalls often result. Untainted food and produce is discarded unnecessarily because the original source of contamination remains a mystery.
It is critical that once toxins, pathogens, and natural contaminants have been discovered, their point of introduction along the supply chain is identified. That way, tainted food items can be separated from untainted food and immediately destroyed. That is what the Produce Traceability Initiative seeks to achieve through improved supply chain traceback. By assigning the 14-digit GTIN numbers to each brand owner, contaminated food and produce lots can be identified quickly and systematically.
eProduce Helps Supply Chain Companies Comply With PTI Standards
Unfortunately, making the necessary changes in order to bring internal traceability standards into compliance with the Produce Traceability Initiative can be difficult for supply chain companies. Modifying internal controls can be expensive and require a significant investment of time. What’s more, the ISO-GS1 regulations that are to be met by the end of the first quarter 2009 represent only two of a series of PTI standards.
eProduce’s traceback software is already in compliance and helping brand owners race to meet the PTI deadline. ISO-GS1 traceability measures have already been integrated into the application. Supply chain firms who use eProduce to accelerate their transition to PTI standards can rest, knowing that they are not only currently in compliance, but will be so for future deadlines.
