Beyond regulatory compliance to competitive advantage
Traceability solutions are starting to play an increasingly important role in a wide range of industries. Food, drink and life sciences organizations in particular are recognizing the benefits of gaining full visibility and traceability of their products throughout the supply chain, from “farm to fork”; not only to comply with forthcoming EU regulations, but also to deliver improved performance and real business benefits. There is a need to rebuild consumer trust following well publicized food scares such as BSE and Dioxin, as well as the potential threat of bio-terrorism. Such scares have undermined consumer confidence and raised food safety and traceability as key political and business issues.
Traceability is high on the international agenda, particularly for global organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). According to the latest FAO statistics, the estimated world population is more than 6 billion people, and there are around 4.5 billion livestock and nearly 17 billion poultry. Recent health threats arising from dioxin food contamination scares and animal diseases, such as BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), have placed food safety squarely on the agenda of legislators in the European Union (EU) and beyond. With increases in cross-border animal movement and public trust in food of animal origin fundamentally undermined, the ability to trace food produce back to source rapidly, accurately, and credibly has become significant issue for governments.
Pat Cox MEP, President of the European Parliament, recently said: “Traceability is one of the central pillars of the new food safety policy in the EU.” From January 2005, new EU food laws will demand the ability to trace and follow a food, feed, food-producing animal, or substance through all stages of production, processing, and distribution. Countries that have stringent food safety requirements make strong traceability demands on their trading partners. In the USA, the threat of bio-terrorism has also given added urgency to the task of safeguarding the food chain.
The Business Challenge
There is a growing need to trace the origins of food we consume and traceability has become a strong investment area. Many food producers and processors are planning to replace existing disparate applications with integrated traceability systems that can interface with their quality control, supply chain management, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and financial systems. Driven by consumer concerns about food safety and the exacting demands of the major retailers, food producers must have systems that can support tracking the grain in a box of cereal back to the farm and the fruit in a vat of juice back to the orchard. There is a strong need to implement sophisticated solutions that offer more capabilities and flexibility in order to handle true “farm to fork” traceability implemented on a highly reliable IT infrastructure. Everyone in the chain - government, farmer, processor, and consumer - should be able to contribute to provide full product traceability and thereby protect public health, ensure animal and human welfare, and deter fraud.
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