Tag Archives: Supply Chain

Katy Jones, Foodlogiq
FST Soapbox

Supplier Management: Grow Strategic Partnerships and Drive Value Across the Supply Chain

By Katy Jones
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Katy Jones, Foodlogiq

According to a report by Kroll and The Economist Intelligence Unit, 17% of companies experienced some type of vendor, supplier or procurement fraud in 2015. While fraud is one of the more extreme examples of supplier management complications, the manufacturer-supplier relationship is notoriously fickle and can result in serious issues if attention and care is not reciprocal from the beginning.

With great communication and even better processes in place, your suppliers have the potential to become strategic partners for your brand, helping drive your values across the supply chain while also helping you achieve overarching business goals.

Do Your Homework

In order to foster positive supplier relations, it is important to consider all available options and carefully assess them before engaging. In the research phase, it is critical to get as many references as possible to ensure you align with a potential supplier when it comes to safety practices and brand values. Looking at a supplier’s history is an effective way to gauge how your partnership will pan out and catch any red flags before they become a bigger problem for the brand, whether that be poor communication habits, dishonesty about products or inconsistent record keeping.

FSMA deadlines for compliance with the Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) are right around the corner. With the changing regulatory landscape, thoroughly investigating potential suppliers is crucial, especially if they are outside of the United States, as the stakes are much higher. Under the FSVP, importers are essentially “guilty” until proven “innocent”—a sharp contrast from how foreign suppliers were previously handled by the FDA. The standards for imported food are stricter than ever, as are the consequences for companies that are found working with foreign suppliers without verification. With the FSVP, the FDA can halt all importations completely as long as they have reason to believe the supplier is not compliant with the program.

Communication Is Key

At the cornerstone of any good relationship is communication; the same goes for relationships within the food industry.

Once a supplier has been thoroughly vetted and is officially on the team, the key to maintaining a successful relationship is transparency. Without full transparency with suppliers, you can’t offer consumers reliable information about their food. At the same time, manufacturers need to be straightforward with their needs to ensure suppliers are able to uphold their expectations. By thoroughly communicating plans and expectations, you and your suppliers can effectively work together to achieve future goals.

At the start of a working relationship with a supplier, it is important to comprehensively onboard and train them in your plans and processes to avoid a lack of understanding down the line. By setting up an all-encompassing onboarding system, inclusive of checklists and background documents on procedures and standards, you can help ease growing pains and empower your new food supplier to become a trusted partner. For instance, if you use a specific supply chain technology, your suppliers should know ahead of time so they can receive adequate training on the solution. This will help streamline communication and minimize any bumps in the road.

Regular Check-Ups

While safety and contamination issues are undesirable, they are inevitable. When faced with an outbreak or contaminant in your supply chain, suppliers become your most crucial resource. A poorly handled recall can wreak havoc on a food manufacturer, with the potential to ruin a trusted brand. Having the correct protocols in place with suppliers to ensure proper procedures are followed quickly and efficiently is critical. In order to make sure suppliers are complying with standards, keeping complete records and maintaining proper safety practices, it is essential to perform regular supplier audits.

With the addition of new technologies in the last few years, monitoring supplier performance and implementing corrective actions has never been easier. There are companies that offer supplier management and food safety management software to enable manufacturers 24/7 end-to-end visibility into their food supply chain and suppliers’ practices, while simplifying communication. Supplier management software offers a single platform that allows a brand to safeguard important supplier documentation, submit proper records to regulators when audited, streamline supplier audits and compliance records, and communicate corrective actions.

Overall, supplier management software with end-to-end supply chain visibility is a great way to keep up with suppliers and rest assured that your company’s food safety guidelines are being followed at all times.

Keeping Consumers Safe and Happy

With the current state of food safety, keeping suppliers in check is absolutely crucial for brands. As the FDA is increasing regulations with the adoption of FSMA, manufacturers must be able to trust their suppliers to uphold these new standards. If there are any slip-ups, your brand is held accountable. At the same time, with the increasing number of high-profile recalls and foodborne illness reports, consumers are on high alert, and winning their trust is harder than ever; today’s conscious consumer expects total transparency from their food brands, something only achieved through a strong supplier management program.

Fortunately, given advancements in technology, manufacturers can now foster more proactive relationships, assess supplier performance and achieve mutual goals across the chain smoothly.

While good supplier management requires time and resources, it is worth the investment. Putting in the effort to foster strategic partnerships with suppliers is key to mitigating safety and contamination issues, meeting the FDA’s regulations, as well as keeping consumers safe and happy.

USP

The U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP)

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USP

USP improves global health through public standards and related programs to help ensure the quality and safety of medicines and foods. USP’s Food Safety and Integrity Solutions, which include the Food Chemicals Codex with more than 1,200 standards (methods and specifications), food ingredient reference materials, the Food Fraud Database v2.0, and food fraud mitigation training and advising services help ensure the quality, safety, and integrity of the food supply and help companies meet regulatory requirements and mitigate supply chain risk.

Katy Jones, Foodlogiq
FST Soapbox

The Clock is Ticking: Technology to Effectively Manage Recalls

By Katy Jones
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Katy Jones, Foodlogiq

It seems there isn’t a day that goes by without a food recall being announced. National brands like General Mills, Kellogg’s and Kraft alone have all experienced major recalls over products contaminated with such hazards as E. coli or undeclared allergens in the last few months. Food recalls are incredibly costly to a company, but can be handled effectively and efficiently with good planning, proper execution and the right technology to back it up.

Fortunately, the food industry is moving in the right direction to encourage better recall management by way of regulations under FSMA. Underscored by these federal mandates, the industry as a whole is moving away from a reactive approach to quality and safety issues within the supply chain, instead adopting a preventative plan of action.

The Multiplier Effect: How One Ingredient Can Lead To Multiple Recalls | Learn more at the 2016 Food Safety Consortium | December 7-8 | Schuamburg, ILRecalls are inevitable in the food industry, and in reality every company has, or will, experience one at some point. What sets a company apart essentially boils down to how they prepare for and react to a recall situation. If a company has done its due diligence to prepare for the inevitable (i.e. putting a recall team in place and implementing the right traceability technology), dealing with a quality or contamination issue can be less painful. Additionally, taking the right preventative steps can ensure a recall situation is proactively handled, rather than leading to a brand’s nightmarish public meltdown.

Getting Beyond “One-up and One-Back”

The industry has relied on a more linear approach to supply chain transparency—the “one-up and one-back” method (OUOB). Knowing where a product has come from one step back in the chain and where it is being sent or sold one step forward is no longer enough. To properly prepare for a recall, and manage product quality, it is imperative that a company employ whole chain traceability software, rather than relying solely on the movement of product within its own four walls.

The OUOB traceability approach is especially dangerous when handling high-risk, perishable foods, like produce or meat—which are often the culprit for recalls. According to a recent study in the Journal of Business Logistics titled, “Tracing Bad Products in Supply Chains” by Kaitlin Wowak, assistant professor of management at Notre Dame, “perishable products, like fresh produce and meats, flow through the supply chain very quickly. And while federal regulations mandate that firms have traceability one step up and down the chain, this may not be sufficient for these perishable products. In those situations, there is often a gap in the information received about the product, say a positive Listeria test, and where that product went in the supply chain.”

Root Cause Analysis is Key

When faced with a recall situation, time is of the essence. The time it takes for the recall team to identify the root cause of an issue and remove it from the supply chain could be the difference between sick consumers and serious brand implications. Being fully cognizant of the entire supply chain via a whole-chain traceability solution allows you to visualize a contaminant’s exact location; this information ultimately helps a brand streamline and manage the issue quickly and effectively.

Wowak’s research profiles a series of recall scenarios. One that was studied found that 50% of the food removed from the supply chain during that recall was actually affected—the other half was perfectly fine. Take the example of a batch of tainted tomatoes in your supply chain. Without being able to identify the root cause at the lot level, a company might be forced to remove all of the tomatoes from its supply chain.

Rather, by utilizing end-to-end traceability software, they can identify the specific farm, pack date and lot from which the produce originated. Tracing that information through each step in the supply chain—hether the tomatoes ended up on a pizza, in a can of salsa, or in a farmer’s market—allows the brand to manage the bad products without disrupting their entire chain or wasting perfectly good produce.

Unfortunately, without the visibility of whole-chain traceability, companies do not have the option to cherry pick tainted vs. untainted food from their chain. This is especially relevant as up to 40% of food in the United States goes to waste, according to the NRDC.1

Centralized Recordkeeping

When faced with a safety or quality issue, communicating information to relevant parties is necessary throughout the process. Especially with FSMA coming into play, if a company experiences a quality issue, they must promptly notify regulatory establishments and be sure to submit documentation and data in an immediate manner for investigative purposes. This can be hindered if a brand does not have a good handle on their supply chain data and must spend hours sorting through file cabinets, emails, or Excel sheets for proper documentation, or coordinating with suppliers for records. The longer it takes to comply with federal regulations and submit data around a recall, the more likely consumers, and the brand, are at risk.

The industry’s shift towards a preventative approach to safety is hitting a milestone as FSMA compliance periods have already taken effect. With this change, the FDA will no longer tolerate poor handling of contamination or quality issues. A company cannot get away with blaming a partner’s lack of transparency, or a supplier’s inconsistent records— the brand is now always accountable. In the coming months, we can anticipate added scrutiny from auditors, more mandatory recalls, even the shutting down of facilities due to noncompliance or negligence around safety concerns.

Having a robust supplier management system in place enables a company to be prepared for a recall situation. With all of your product and supplier data in one place, companies can quickly gather and allocate necessary data like audits and assessments to the appropriate officials, complying with the new required recordkeeping rules. By streamlining the availability of key information, and supporting seamless communication, a brand can be empowered to navigate a quality or safety issue.

As testing across the supply chain increases and the demand for fresh food rises, recalls are not going away. Fortunately, the move to a preventative approach to safety comes at a time where traceability technology is more comprehensive than ever. Food companies have the opportunity to invest in themselves with end-to-end traceability, arming the brand for the inevitable occurrence of a safety or quality issue. By enhancing visibility of the supply chain via an all-encompassing whole-chain platform, it is possible to track a product through each stopover to the consumer, from farm to fork. At the same time, housing all data in one efficient platform can ease the pressure of liaising with supply chain partners and regulatory bodies and streamline communications when faced with a safety situation.

While recalls are an inescapable part of the food industry, what sets a brand apart is how well they prepare and arm themselves with the technology to stay ahead. Implementing supplier management and whole-chain traceability software can help a company stay one step ahead of a recall, which makes all the difference when consumer wellness and brand reputation are on the line.

Reference

  1. Gunders, D. (August 2012). “Wasted: How America Is Losing up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork in Landfill”. NRDC Issue Paper. Retrieved from https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf

New Whole Genome Sequencing Test Monitors Threat of Pathogens

By Maria Fontanazza
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Today food companies will have access to a new whole genome sequencing (WGS) test that could help them prevent dangerous pathogens from getting into their products. Released by Clear Labs, the test takes a detailed approach to identifying pathogen strains in samples, providing information about their geography and from which food groups they originate.

In an exclusive interview with Food Safety Tech, Mahni Ghorashi, co-founder of Clear Labs, explains how he expects the company’s new test, which has a five- to seven-day turnaround time, will offer companies with a more accurate yet less expensive alternative to protecting consumers by actively monitoring their supply chain for emerging pathogens.

Food Safety Tech: What differentiates this WGS test from current available solutions?

Mahni Ghorashi: No one has been able to provide the food industry with modern whole genome sequencing techniques for food safety. What we’re releasing is a quantum leap in terms of what’s been available on the market today. Whole genome sequencing has been largely siloed to regulatory bodies like FDA and CDC to trace outbreaks and inform investigations—the technologies and techniques that they’re using are actually fairly old; they’re some of the original WGS techniques that emerged on the next-gen sequencing platform. We’ve taken the most advanced techniques on the NGS platform for human disease exploration and personalized medicine and adapted them for food industry.

What gives our WGS test a competitive advantage over legacy-based methods is two fold:

1. Clear Labs has a 2-million+ entry-curated database of genomic information and sequences for the accurate ID of food ingredients (pathogenic organisms and microbiomes). Its accuracy and the confidence level that comes behind our matching is a huge step above anything that’s available in the public domain today.

2. Being able to place pathogenic strain information in the context of overall food ingredients and samples. The whole genome sequencing test we developed has been specifically catered for the food industry, and for food samples in particular, [versus] FDA’s GenomeTrakr, CDC’s PulseNet, or other food safety labs that are offering full genomic sequencing of pathogen strains—they’re using some of the earliest methods to do this. On the NGS platform, we’re able to put those strains in the context of food ingredients and suppliers: Specifically, [matching] bacterial strains with food ingredients [and] suppliers.

Clear Labs, whole genome sequencing

FST: Does this test target specific foods?

Ghorashi: Our platform particularly shines in complex foods. The value of next-gen sequencing and DNA barcoding over PCR-based technologies, which is the gold standard in food safety, is its stability to break down complex food ingredients into all of their known parts, and to look in a universal and unbiased way into food samples. It’s untargeted, so you don’t have know what it is that you’re looking for—and that’s the real power.

FST: What impact do you anticipate for this test, especially in the context of FSMA?

Ghorashi: Our customers are using [the test] for monitoring ingredient supplies and the effectiveness of preventive and sanitary controls [and] to match specific pathogen strains to specific food ingredients. They are using it for proactive testing for FSMA compliance—there’s a lot of movement in this direction and hefty budgets are being allocated to put new preventive controls in place in response to FSMA; whole-genome sequencing will play a big role, and we anticipate large-scale partnerships with agencies and private industry on that front. And the most obvious use case is that it’s being used for techniques to mitigate or reduce the risk of product recall and outbreak.

We’ve been able to significantly reduce the price point on whole-genome sequencing, and all of our tests across the board, because we’re intimately familiar with how the inner workings of these platforms and how to best optimize them for scale and cost efficiency. We think the test will be more accurate and leaps and bounds ahead of what’s available, as well as cost competitive. We’re excited about the work we’re doing and its impact on food safety. I don’t think the food industry—retailers and manufacturers—have ever had access to these kind of tools and they’re being made available just in time for FSMA, as the industry moves towards a more proactive approach to food safety and [takes] preventive measures in their supply chains.  Hopefully we’ll soon be living in a world where outbreaks, illness and the financial toll are a thing of a past.

Clear Labs also just released a microbiome test that helps companies associate microbiomes with specific food ingredients.

Mahni Ghorashi: The microbiome test we’ve developed is able to sequence samples from the human gut and from food, and look at how the microorganisms are interacting. Our customers for this test have been large brands that have advanced R&D departments and academic research centers that are looking for how diet research and the microbiome interact together and how new product development can help us move toward personalized diets when it comes to prebiotic and probiotic diets.”

The impact of the microbiome and the correlations between bacteria of the human gut and the bacteria in the food we eat. The prevailing thesis at the moment is that the microbiome has a significant impact on our health when it comes to disease risk and diet, inflammation and mood disorders. We’re seeing very forward thinking brands like Nestle, ConAgra and Mars putting a lot of attention on the impact of the microbiome when it comes the development of new products, [such as] prebiotics and probiotics, or even specific food products as it pertains to the microbiome. We believe that this intersection— nutrigenomics and the personalized diet—is going to be a massive market, and we’re at the early stages of that.
Randy Fields, Repositrak
FST Soapbox

Food Safety Collaboration across the Value Chain

By Randy Fields
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Randy Fields, Repositrak

FSMA is the law of the land and the FDA is starting to enforce compliance, so now is the right time to discuss what’s working and what isn’t in terms of trading partner collaboration. Just how are companies successfully coordinating the movement of goods from the point of production and processing to the American consumer and ensuring food safety throughout the value chain?

Risk reduction continues to be the focus of collaboration between trading partners, with the understanding that failing to meet compliance requirements can mean big fines for companies and jail time for executives. We’ve seen a marked increase on this topic in the sessions at trade shows and conferences, and the number of webinars and other educational opportunities has soared during the past year. Most importantly, the number of meetings continues to increase between retailers, suppliers and carriers where the discussion of food safety compliance and risk reduction is high on the agenda.

Eliminating risk is always top of mind for a company’s lawyers and accountants, but recent issues have caused other company functions to increase their collaboration with contacts at trading partner companies. On the retail side, merchandisers are holding vendors accountable for compliance and requiring food safety documents for new suppliers at signup. Purchasing is reconfiguring the purchasing process to suspend or stop PO generation and payment if a supplier is out of compliance. And, store operators are alerted to potential safety concerns, so they can act expediently on behalf of their consumers.

For suppliers, sales teams are getting necessary training on food safety, and they are using this knowledge to engage customers and protect their brand equity with consumers. Their supply chain and IT managers are also managing to the new FSMA normal of managing dozens of new documents and present written records in accordance with the 24-hour requirement. For their part, transportation companies are working to meet new FSMA requirements that demand assurance in writing that food was transported under proper sanitary conditions.

What’s Driving This Collaboration?

Similar to Sarbanes-Oxley, CEOs are responsible for verifying the compliance of their supply chain under FSMA. Given these risks, companies have started to automate their management of compliance documentation. Forward-thinking companies are even moving beyond compliance document management and are applying the same technology to ensure that important product information like gluten-free items and allergen-related declarations are properly documented.

Collaboration is supported in today’s environment by technology, which saves companies both time and money by leveraging automation to ensure the accuracy of documents (e.g., indemnifications and insurance), providing executives with information on which to make better business partner decisions.

Collaboration is a critical cog in the wheel of the value chain that helps provide the consumer with a safer food supply while reducing both brand risk to suppliers and retailers and health risk to all. The industry needs to strengthen its working relationships to ensure this effort continues without constraints.

Cecile Camerlynck, Transparency One

Why We Buy: The New Era of Transparency

By Cécile Camerlynck
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Cecile Camerlynck, Transparency One

Supply chains are getting increasingly more complex. Add to this the fact that consumers want more and more information about the products they buy. How can we obtain and store the information we want (and need), when we interact with hundreds of suppliers? Transparency in your supply chain is no longer a “nice to have”, but has become a must-have.

Product, price and quality used to be enough. Brands created products with good, better and best strategies targeting specific customer segments based on price and quality differences. Classifying customers and products allowed for more targeted offers—and a closer connection to the consumer.

And then Apple and Amazon reinvented the shopping experience. Digital and mobile took off. The customer experience became a point of differentiation in the store, online and on devices. As a result, the customer experience and omni-channel retailing have been core values for the past decade.

Today, a new value is emerging: Transparency. It is no longer enough to have a high-quality product, at a good price and with a rewarding shopping experience. The rise in health-conscious consumers, a highly interconnected society (transparency in the digital era), and a greater frequency of recalls and social responsibility issues has increased consumer demand for transparency. They want to know where and how products are made, what they are made of, and who made them.

Unsurprisingly, shoppers are very concerned by news about food safety issues such a Listeria and food fraud, which have become increasingly well publicized. Experience shows that these events have a significant impact on consumer confidence in brands and in certain types of products, which can take a long time to overcome.

According to a report released this year by World Vision Canada, consumers want to make ethical buying decisions.1 However, they are kept in the dark and don’t have enough information about products to do so. The organization is pushing for a new law, such as those already passed in the United States and the UK, to ensure that factories in foreign countries supplying the Canadian market don’t use minors to make products.

Every brand will need to determine the right level of transparency for their company and customers (consumer trust drivers like country of origin, label accuracy, etc.). Only 1% of consumers will want to know everything. For the other 99%, what they really want to know is that the brand they are buying from has a safe and responsible supply chain. They want to trust the brand promise. However, many brands still only know their immediate suppliers—and to ensure this trust, they need to dig deeper.

Providing transparency in your entire supply chain will reduce what we call the “visibility barrier” and give you access to all the information that you need and that your customer wants. Rather than simply reacting when a crisis emerges, you will proactively know your entire supply chain identity.

In 2016, technology and business practices exist to truly create brand trust by ensuring a safe and responsible supply chain. Yes, supply chains are complex and global. Yes, they represent thousands of companies, some of whom may not want to share information. But if more than a billion people can connect on Facebook, when it comes to knowing the supply chain, it’s simply not enough to say “I don’t know.”

Reference

  1. Press, J. (June 9, 2016). “New report on child labour raises call for supply chain transparency law”, Times Colonist, Accessed August 12, 2016. Retrieved from: http://www.timescolonist.com/new-report-on-child-labour-raises-call-for-supply-chain-transparency-law-1.2274235
Maria Fontanazza, Food Safety Tech and Christina Romas, Repositrak

Does the C-Suite Understand FSMA? Not Completely

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Maria Fontanazza, Food Safety Tech and Christina Romas, Repositrak

One year ago, the industry was speculating about the details of the final FSMA rules, but was very much taking a “wait-and-see” approach. With all seven rules finalized, companies are now preparing for compliance. Beyond taking the steps to ensure that companies understand their responsibilities pertaining to each rule, there has been continual concern over a lack of C-suite awareness—both related to FSMA and knowing what is really happening at the ground level. “I think there’s been a culture shift with food safety professionals having more visibility to the leadership team and to the C-suite,” said Christina Romas, senior vice president at Repositrak, during a recent interview with Food Safety Tech.

When asked whether she thought the C-suite adequately understands FSMA, Romas succinctly replied, “no”. Watch the rest of the video to hear what Romas had to say about FSMA compliance challenges and which rule is getting the most attention from industry thus far.

 

Randy Fields, Repositrak
FST Soapbox

Insurance and Food Safety: A Primer for the C-Suite

By Randy Fields
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Randy Fields, Repositrak

Food safety risk is now a greater concern for retailers and manufacturers than ever before due to the combination of FSMA and increased consumer concerns. Supply chains are more complex, product recalls and foodborne illness outbreaks occur more frequently, and the new normal is prevention rather than inspection. Wrap that all up with advanced technology and the 24-hour news cycle, and consumers are acutely becoming aware of food safety issues as soon as they occur.

What this means for all of the participants in the global food supply chain is that you should review your insurance policies and look for gaps in coverage where you may be exposed. While no two recalls are the same, and foodborne illness outbreaks impact affected companies in different ways, certain trends have emerged to help better understand the claim friction points that frustrate companies after a food safety event.

Two of the most important tools to mitigate food safety risk are contaminated product insurance (CPI) and product recall insurance (PRI). Inventory, cost of refunds and recall expenses are three of the largest recall loss items suffered by companies. Combined, they are the largest percentage of loss (nearly 50%) and represent a substantial portion of uncovered loss for any insured under CPI/PRI. The sole basis for this frustrating friction point is simple—lack of traceability.

CPI/PRI only covers losses that result directly from a covered insured event. If a company is unable to support its claim that costs are directly related to the event and the resulting recall or outbreak, it will not be reimbursed under a CPI/PRI policy. And, as such, loss amounts are generally not covered under general liability and property policies either, so a significant portion of a company’s loss remains uncovered.

Here’s a recent claim example to illustrate the impact on a company that lacked the capability to properly trace its products. An insured purchased a CPI policy with a $2 million Accidental Contamination limit. An event occurred involving a contaminated food product, which triggered that coverage. During the review, the insured provided spreadsheets supporting nearly $1.1 million in customer credits for product shipped and either returned by the customer for disposal or destroyed by the customer. Unfortunately, based on a review of the information provided in support of the spreadsheets, the accountants found that the insured was unable to properly trace and support its claim that the returned or destroyed product was affected by the insured event recall. Under these circumstances, the accountants were only able to confirm $187,000 in losses. The result: The company was unable to recover nearly $1 million in potentially covered losses because it lacked traceability. These outcomes are not uncommon.

The insurance industry understands food safety risks and the need to evolve products to meet the needs of food industry clients. Companies can’t totally mitigate all food safety issues, but understanding the risks is the best way for a business to protect itself. Insurance industry leaders are working in partnership with their food sector clients to ensure that risks are better understood and that the client has appropriate systems in place to help mitigate them.

Insurance companies are tailoring their products to ensure that policies are developed to address the recall risks caused by regulatory changes and help companies ensure compliance as well as an understanding of the regulatory requirements. However, food companies may increasingly find coverage and limits adjusted lower for government recalls in high-risk environments. Insurers are also a key player in the promotion of food safety standards, and some offer favorable rates to food industry clients who are graded top tier for safety.

Some insurers go a step further, allowing clients to allocate a portion of their premium for pre-incident risk-analysis and crisis-response services. Top insurers provide clients access to a network of crisis management specialists as part of their food safety coverage. They should offer risk management guidance in areas such as food safety risk, regulatory compliance, supply chain management and product security.

One of the most critical risk mitigation tactics is developing long-term relationships with trusted, but verified, suppliers, distributors and other key partners. It is also important for companies to undertake regular site visits to their manufacturers or suppliers, and commission third-party audits to maintain reliability and transparency.

Not if, but when a product recall occurs, a company faces a myriad of risks. As with food safety, preventive planning can pay off significantly. By proactively working with insurers, trading partners and technology vendors you can reduce if not eliminate the negative impact of the event.

Steven Guterman, InstantLabs
In the Food Lab

Save Seafood with Digital Tracking

By Steven Guterman, Sarah McMullin, Steve Phelan
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Steven Guterman, InstantLabs

The combination of improved digital tracking along the food supply chain, as well as fast, accurate DNA testing will provide modern, state-of-the-art tools essential to guarantee accurate labeling for the ever-increasing quantities of foods and ingredients shipped globally.

The sheer scale of the international food supply chain creates opportunities for unscrupulous parties to substitute cheaper products with false labels. We know fraud is obviously a part of the problem. Some suppliers and distributors engage in economically motivated substitution. That is certain.

It’s equally true, however, that some seafood misidentification is inadvertent. In fact, some species identification challenges are inevitable, particularly at the end of the chain after processing. We believe most providers want to act in an ethical manner.

Virtually all seafood fraud involves the falsification or manipulation of documents created to guarantee that the label on the outside of the box matches the seafood on the inside. Unfortunately, the documents are too often vague, misleading or deliberately fraudulent.

Oceana, an international non-profit focused solely on protecting oceans and ocean resources, has published extensively on seafood fraud and continues to educate the public and government through science-based campaigns.

Seafood fraud is not just an economic issue. If the product source is unknown, it is possible to introduce harmful contamination into the food supply. By deploying two actions simultaneously, we can help address this problem and reduce mistakes and mishandling:

  • Improved digital tracking technologies deployed along the supply chain
  • Faster, DNA-based in-house testing to generate results in hours

Strategic collaborations can help industry respond to broad challenges such as seafood fraud. We partner with the University of Guelph to develop DNA-based tests for quick and accurate species identification. The accuracy and portability produced by this partnership allow companies to deploy tests conveniently at many points in the supply chain and get accurate species identification results in hours.

Our new collaboration with SAP, the largest global enterprise digital partner in the world, will help ensure that test results can be integrated with a company’s supply chain data for instant visibility and action throughout the enterprise. In fact, SAP provides enterprise-level software to customers who distribute 78% of the world’s food and accordingly its supply chain validation features have earned global acceptance.

The food fraud and safety digital tracking innovations being developed by SAP will be critical in attacking fraud. Linking paper documents with definitive test results at all points in the supply chain is no longer a realistic solution. Paper trails in use today do not go far enough. Product volume has rendered paper unworkable. Frustrated retailers voice concerns that their customers believe they are doing more testing and validation than they can actually undertake.

We must generate more reliable data and make it available everywhere in seconds in order to protect and strengthen the global seafood supply chain.

Catfish will become the first seafood species to be covered by United States regulations as a result of recent Congressional legislation. This change will immediately challenge the capability of supply chain accuracy. Catfish are but one species among thousands.

Increasingly, researchers and academics in the food industry recognize fast and reliable in-house and on-site testing as the most effective method to resolve the challenges of seafood authentication.

DNA-based analyses have proven repeatedly to be the most effective process to ensure accurate species identification across all food products. Unfortunately, verifying a species using DNA sequencing techniques typically takes one to two weeks to go from sample to result. With many products, and especially with seafood, speed on the production line is essential. In many cases, waiting two weeks for results is just not an acceptable solution.

Furthermore, “dipstick” or lateral-flow tests may work on unprocessed food at the species level, however, DNA testing provides the only accurate test method to differentiate species and sub-species in both raw and processed foods.

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which analyzes the sample DNA, can provide accurate results in two to three hours, which in turn enhances the confidence of producers, wholesalers and retailers in the products they sell and minimizes their risk of recalls and brand damage.

New technology eliminates multi-day delays for test results that slow down the process unnecessarily. Traditional testing options require sending samples to commercial laboratories that usually require weeks to return results. These delays can be expensive and cumbersome. Worse, they may prevent fast, accurate testing to monitor problems before they reach a retail environment, where brand and reputational risk are higher.

Rapid DNA-based testing conducted in-house and supported by sophisticated digital tracking technologies will improve seafood identification with the seafood supply chain. This technological combination will improve our global food chain and allow us to do business with safety and confidence in the accuracy and reliability of seafood shipments.

Gina Kramer
Food Safety Think Tank

Mobile Technology Could Help Your Business in an Outbreak

By Gina R. Nicholson-Kramer
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Gina Kramer

Join Gina Kramer at the Listeria Detection & Control Workshop, May 31–June 1 in St. Paul, MN | LEARN MOREI recently spoke with Wes Billingslea, one of the co-founder’s of Till Mobile Corp., a company founded because its team realized large brands needed to connect all the way down to the smallholder and grower level. There are more than 6 billion mobile devices on earth and only a small percentage of them are smartphones. Till uses voice, text, and SMS-mobile to enable two-way communication with smallholders, and to deliver visibility and traceability. The company is able to collect massive amounts of data from growers because there is no resistance to using mobile phones. It works with your existing systems to identify and fill data gaps that create risk. The big brands access detailed analytics and can communicate directly throughout their supply chain to accelerate supplier onboarding, support local and alternate sourcing, and check inventory, pricing, and food safety standards.

I asked Wes, as a food company, how could this technology save me money? To start, it allows you to check inventory and pricing, and helps you adhere to your food safety standards beyond the packinghouse or distributor. It can also help you get more out of your existing systems to protect your IT infrastructure.

In the following video, we discuss the Salmonella outbreak in cucumbers that occurred last summer. In such a scenario, this new technology could help save food retailers money during an outbreak or recall by giving them greater visibility and real-time data, and help them source alternatives directly.