Traceability, as a general concept, is fundamental for protecting consumers and ensuring quality and safety in various industries. It's a system that involves "tracking" and "tracing" to show the movement of goods as they travel from primary producer to consumer. Tracking - or following a product, group of products or product derivatives forward to retail shelves - is matched with tracing materials back to their origins. Along the food supply chain, traceability is generally used in one of two ways: either for product recalls or to support a range of product claims.
The traceability models used in the food-and-fibre supply chains have been around, in one form or another, for more than 30 years. The tools we have used in the past have evolved over time but still follow the same processes. A source-verified branded product from 30 years ago may have had the details printed on the packaging stating where it was grown, the story of the farmer or how it was processed. There could have been a phone number, or later a website, to find out more about the story behind the food. There might even have been a source verification number that you could check to ensure the product was authentic. Today, a consumer can scan a QR code on their packaging to get exactly the same information.
To be able to talk about traceability in any meaningful way, for a given food or fibre, you must fully understand the whole supply chain in fine detail. When this detailed understanding of the supply chain is missing, companies often make poor business decisions in choosing what systems and processes to implement and lose sight of their original goal of meeting customer traceability expectations.
Data42 has long been involved in projects within food and fibre industries involving traceability, so we have deep expertise in this area.
To help you evaluate your industry's traceability information flow Data42 have created a scorecard tool. The Traceability Score Card evaluates a number of different identification and information processes against the National Traceability Framework Principles.
Food safety is one of the primary reasons traceability is so important and so heavily legislated. Businesses and industries are wary of losing sales to consumer fear around diseased or contaminated food. They want to remove any damaged or contaminated stock as quickly as possible, without losing sales from non-damaged or uncontaminated stock. This has led to industry solutions that track any food through all stages of production, processing and distribution, including importation and at retail.
Consumers want to trust that the product they purchase really does deliver on the promises made by the industry or company. We know that businesses want to please their customers, while recognising that expensive traceability solutions don't necessarily equate to more sales. This has led to the development of systems that can show how a product is produced, transported and delivered, within the demands and budgets of the industry.
Securely storing and maintaining data is vital for good business practice in any industry, but especially in food and fibre industries. Traceability can underpin the development of reporting systems that store the history of any product or animal, from start to finish. As a part of good business practice, traceability supported systems and procedures provide a sense of security, by recording the whole-of-life history for an animal or product.
Recognising the value and importance of ensuring customers can trust the emotive claims behind a product should be at the forefront of business practice. In the meat production process, traceability can help identify and highlight various stages, whether for reporting, security, or consumer trust.
Food integrity is about providing assurance to consumers, and other stakeholders, about the safety, authenticity and quality of food. Traceability is a tool which can help maintain confidence around these issues for individual businesses and entire industries.
The effective use of traceability tools in business and industry benefits everyone involved. Embracing traceability can make optimum use of your financial, human, technological and physical resources.
Data42 founder, Des Bowler, has written various articles about the impacts of traceability in different sectors of food and fibre industries, using his 25+ years of experience. He fundamentally believes that traceability is free. If you would like to find out more about how you can implement free traceability in your industry, simply browse the articles below.
Each of these articles have worked examples for their specific sector. They outline how the Global Supply Chain Standards can be applied, and how that provides free traceability.
Des Bowler has been working with information systems within the meat and livestock industry - and as the managing director of Management for Technology - since 1993. Des has worked with companies all over the world to establish more efficient means of traceability. Through this work he has also presented to industry and government forums around the globe, including the United Nations ECE.
In 2006 Des was the inaugural winner of the GS1 Australia Supply Chain Excellence Award - an award that is issued to an outstanding individual for "Leadership in Standards in Action". This award recognised the work undertaken in the adoption of standardised numbering and bar coding in the Australian meat Industry for global traceability. This model, and the methods that were utilised by the Australian industry, have now been adopted by most global meat-trading partners such as the US, Japan, the EU, New Zealand and South America.
Over the last few years, the word traceability has increasingly appeared in the media, advertising and in regulations around the world. Management in all sectors of food-and-fibre supply chains need to be aware of the impacts of traceability drivers and emerging technology on their respective businesses - and on food supply chains as a whole.
Management for Technology and Data42 specialise in improving food-supply-chain traceability, providing expertise to government, industry and organisations to implement technologies inexpensively and effectively. Currently, many traceability systems in the food industry are still manual and ineffective in meeting a growing consumer demand - so Des seeks to use the industry experience he's gained to educate people in the agricultural sector, governments and consumers on how to get the most out of traceability solutions.
Over the last 30 years Des has conducted many industry reviews and analyses resulting in the publication of numerous industry reports. Some of these reports can be found at: meatprojects.com
Des is also a member of the Red Meat Supply Chain Committee, a joint industry and government committee reviewing and piloting information standards related to the red meat industry.