TraceGains’ Spells out Sensible Food Supply Chain Solutions
The mission at TraceGains (www.TraceGains.com) is to protect the brand of food and beverage clients by eliminating problems before product is shipped to the customer.
Recently Georgia legislators, and other states are slated to follow, are taking reactionary and draconian legislative measures. After Georgia-made peanut products were named as the culprit in a nationwide salmonella outbreak, state lawmakers have moved quickly on a bill to make Georgia the first state to require food makers to swiftly alert state inspectors if their internal tests show their products are tainted. The proposed food safety regulations would require the food processors to report the results within 24 hours. Never mind false positives, bad testing data, damaged brand protection from erroneous media reporting, and other nefarious outcomes. Federal officials, food scientists, legal experts and industry groups cannot point to another state with similar requirements and will cause many food manufacturers to vacate the state, causing significant job losses at a time when such a results can least be afforded.
The most sensible approach has three steps:
- Label throughout the Entire Food Supply Chain as the Starting Point. Every raw food product leaving the farm gate, every intermediate food ingredient shipped from an ingredient processing plant, and every final food product shipped from the final food manufacturer, imported or domestic, must have bar codes depicting:
(a) a unique identification number for each shipper
(b) identification of the owner
(c) product number identifying the contents of the carton
(d) production lot number or other production identifier
Initially, the labeling can be at the individual case or master case level (whichever is most appropriate), but labeling quickly should move in the next five years to individual items inside the case as appropriate. We don’t think each apple, for example, should have this information, but if the carton contains wrapped, tinned or otherwise packaged food products, each separately wrapped consumer-ready food item should be labeled. The label containing the above bar-coded information should also be human readable and interoperable throughout the supply chain: from growers and first-mile producers all the way to the receiving dock of the retailer who provides the finished product to the consumer. Retailers, though, would not be required to tie a specific sale to a specific consumer.
One such labeling approach would be to combine the current UPC code with the lot number using the Global Standard 1 (GS1-128) labeling standard. There are several labeling standards, though, and we are not predisposed to a specific standard.
- Preserve Identity throughout the Entire Food Supply Chain as the Foundation for Safety and Rapid Action in the Event of a Problem. All labeled products from the farm gate, through intermediate ingredient processing, to final manufacturing should be scanned upon receipt, and each incoming material should be tracked to the specific, final product. In this way, each outgoing product from each production segment (whether a consumer-ready finished good or an intermediate) can be tied back to all the batches for each incoming ingredient. Identity would be preserved across commingling, re-pack, re-work, and re-combination. Additionally, any packaging material in direct contact with the food product would also be tracked as part of the record. The result would be a Bill of Compliance for each production batch for each operation. Given that the ingredients for many final food products pass through one or more intermediate processors, this allows authorized regulators to truly understand the source of all materials back to the first mile.
- Create a Private Industry Data Repository for the Entire Food Supply Chain while Enabling Rapid Investigation, Root Cause Analysis, and Tracing to the Source of the Problem. The data gathered would not immediately be sent to a central, government-controlled database. Rather, each company in the supply chain would be free to choose a “data trustee” who will hold information on the food company’s behalf, and make only appropriate information available to investigators in the event of a food safety problem when investigators request that information. A large corporation might elect to become their own “data trustee” if they were able to become certified as a “data trustee”. Until requested, no corporate production information would flow from the “data trustee” to populate the government database. Each “data trustee” can be queried electronically by government investigators for information relating to a specific entity in the supply chain. When queried, the “data trustee” would respond with only the minimal information required to proceed with the food investigation. Other information which may be sensitive to the food company would be not shared with the government. This data sharing approach not only preserves data confidentiality for the food companies, but it simplifies the task of assembling the necessary information for investigations by government. To provide the necessary checks-and-balances to ensure such a system is not abused, each government use would be reviewed by a select committee of government-appointed members (1/3), industry-appointed members (1/3), and members mutually appointed by the first two groups (1/3).
TraceGains Inc.
Marc Simony, Director of Marketing
(303)682-9898
About the Author:
Professional Marketing Firm for the Manufacturing Community and Manufacturing Journalist to most manufacturing magazines
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