Transparency In The Food Supply Chain And Food Safety

There are fake products in the food chain as it lacks traceability, and food safety in sourcing ingredients raises the risk of contamination. Spoilt food can affect the business and the reputation of the industry. The Supply Chain Improvement Project is implemented using the GS1 standard to manage ingredient safety and improve the visibility of food ingredients and raw materials in an intricate supply chain. The project targets to strengthen the integration of thousands of complicated supply chains in the Australian food manufacturing industry.

To push the project using GS1 global standards, an industry group is set up for data capture, product identification, and sharing. GS1's Global Traceability Standard (GTS) will permit the business to track their products in real-time, and the traceability framework will provide end-to-end visibility of the supply chain. The group will operate to achieve unanimity across the industry to improve food safety, cost reduction, and delivery efficiencies.

The group comprises representatives from Ingham's, SPC, Nestle, CHR Hansen, FPC Food Plastics, Lion Dairy and Drinks, Newly Weds Foods, Labelmakers, Matthews Australasia, and Visy Industries. The capacity to capture material movements from Paddock to plate provides data integrity to the companies and timelines from receipt to delivery that can be traced back t the source.

Automation eliminates many manual processes, allowing businesses to be more dedicated to their inventory management and handling systems. The food and beverage business must track the ingredients back to their origin from a food safety perspective.

Businesses must have the capability to support production and information flow within the existing system for an integrated supply chain. As a result, the waste within the organization's value stream can be removed, the non-value added task can be reduced, and cost-effective solutions can be given to the consumers.

The GS1 standard can function as a common language for data capture, sharing, and identification. The internal processes can be rendered into one common language that all the trading partners can understand. Interoperability is vital for the future of data sharing, and international standards would give transparency across the supply chain.