Tag Archives: temperature control

Pratik Jagad
FST Soapbox

Route-planning Software Reduces Food Loss, Improves Operational Efficiency

By Pratik Jagad
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Pratik Jagad

The food shipping industry has witnessed a surge in demand for more efficient services, and with that comes the need for more effective route planning. The success of food enterprises hinges on timely deliveries and cost optimization. To meet these challenges head-on, route planning software has emerged as a transformative tool that can reshape the logistics landscape for food companies. In this article, we explore efficient route planning in the food industry and how the adoption of route planning software can enhance overall operations.

The Importance of Effective Route Planning in the Food Industry

In the competitive world of food logistics and delivery, efficient route planning plays a pivotal role for several reasons. First and foremost, it directly impacts delivery times, ensuring that food reaches customers promptly. This not only satisfies the demands of discerning consumers but also strengthens customer loyalty and brand reputation.

Optimized routes have also proven to be a financial boon for food companies. By streamlining routes, businesses can significantly reduce food loss and improve fuel efficiency, leading to substantial cost savings in the long run. Additionally, effective route planning enables better resource allocation, enhancing overall operational efficiency and productivity.

Optimizing Delivery Routes with Route Planning Software

Route planning software leverages technology to optimize delivery routes. Some key ways in which route planning software is improving the logistics industry include:

  • Real-Time Traffic Updates: By incorporating real-time traffic data, route planning software dynamically adjusts delivery routes to avoid traffic congestions, ensuring timely deliveries even during peak hours.
  • Efficient Resource Allocation: With its ability to take into account various variables such as vehicle capacity, delivery time frames and driver availability, optimization software streamlines resource allocation, reducing idle time and improving overall delivery efficiency.
  • Cost Reduction and Fuel Efficiency: The software’s ability to design more efficient routes not only translates into cost savings but also reduces the environmental impact, as fuel consumption decreases, thereby contributing to more sustainable practices.

Ensuring Food Safety and Quality During Transit

For food shippers, maintaining the safety and quality of products during transit is of paramount importance. Route planning software addresses this concern through:

  • Temperature Control: User tools consider the specific temperature requirements of perishable goods and assign vehicles equipped with the appropriate refrigeration capacities, safeguarding the freshness and quality of products during transportation.
  • Minimizing Food Spoilage: Optimized routes reduce travel time, minimizing the risk of food spoilage, a crucial factor for businesses dealing with perishable goods.

Compliance with Food Safety Regulations

Adherence to food safety regulations is a non-negotiable aspect of the food industry. Route planning software assists companies in ensuring compliance with delivery and food safety laws, preventing potential legal issues and fines that could harm the reputation and financial stability of the business.

Enhancing Customer Satisfaction

In an era where customer experience reigns supreme, route planning software becomes an invaluable tool for food businesses aiming to enhance customer satisfaction. By streamlining delivery processes and reducing delays, the software contributes to meeting customer expectations and building brand loyalty.

Gone are the days of running your shipping operations from within a spreadsheet. The only logical next step is to implement technology tools that can help shippers catch up and eventually stay ahead of the curve. For food shippers, implementing route optimization tools and getting your perishable goods to shelves, freezers or onto plates faster can improve customer satisfaction and bottom line growth.

Gururaj (Guru) Rao
FST Soapbox

How to Overcome Food Logistics Challenges with Delivery Technology

By Gururaj (Guru) Rao
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Gururaj (Guru) Rao

The food logistics industry faces numerous obstacles. With changing government regulations and complex supply chains, it can be difficult for businesses to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of food logistics. There are several areas of expertise that must be taken into account when running a successful operation in this space, including regulatory compliance, financial forecasting and risk mitigation, customer demands and preferences assessment, resource optimization, technology integration, infrastructure development, and maintenance.

Each of these tasks require careful planning and execution to ensure smooth operations while also controlling costs associated with delivering the end-product on time. It is crucial for businesses operating in this sector to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in order to effectively plan for any eventualities that may arise, and this is where delivery technology can help.

How Delivery Technology Can Mitigate Food Logistics Disruption

Strategic Planning. Understanding customer needs and optimizing delivery routes is key to successful food logistics. To start, assess historical patterns of past deliveries and service levels. Long-term recurring plans should be applicable for periods of a quarter or two. Previously, route planning was done with pen and paper, but now computers can quickly assign new staff to existing regular routes. This technology can help you test your recurring route plans and optimize the number of deliveries to meet customer service goals while reducing mileage and streamlining the whole process.

Real-Time Visibility and Monitoring. Real-time visibility and monitoring are vital for any successful delivery operation, allowing you to verify that your deliveries are on track. You can monitor driver location and ETA information as well as average stop times, dwell times, fuel usage, and onboard temperatures. This is especially important for food deliveries, where it is crucial to keep the food at the proper temperature.

Order status can be viewed by the sales team too, so they can inform customers of any changes in their orders quickly. Unforeseen events that may delay delivery can occur. Therefore, it is essential to have a plan B in place that includes automatic notifications to keep customers updated. Although this may cause initial disappointment, taking this extra step will foster a sense of trust and reliability with customers.

Delivery Execution. Delivery execution is one of the most critical steps in the food delivery process. With modern technology, such as GS1 barcodes and delivery capture devices, wholesale food delivery is faster than ever before. Benefits of this technology include tracking goods for food safety, capturing proof of delivery, contactless delivery, electronic documentation, custom workflow capture, return capture and item substitution for customer satisfaction, and exception capture to identify and solve problems in real time. All of these features help guarantee that the customer receives their order safely and quickly.

Analytics and Reporting. Delivery technology is revolutionizing the data collection and analysis process for food logistics, enabling businesses to make informed decisions with insights from detailed reports. It can generate reports about on-time vs. delayed deliveries, popular items delivered, inventory age, miles driven vs. planned miles, driver performance, and spoilage/returns.

This data will help pinpoint customer preferences, manage food waste, boost fuel efficiency, increase driver productivity and improve quality control. Plus, these reporting tools also help to facilitate recalls in case of a food issue—letting businesses swiftly remove any affected items from circulation while avoiding customer complaints.

There’s a lot that goes into traceability. Here’s what is required:

  • Record product lot numbers every time products arrive at the warehouse
  • Maintain the traceability of raw materials as appropriate
  • Manage the movement of every product effectively during delivery
  • Identify the location of every product lot quickly

Food is what connects our world. It invites us all to experience other cultures and brings people together. That’s why it’s so important that this food logistics industry works like a well-oiled machine, and that can only happen if we readily adapt to current situations with the use of available technologies.

Sanjay Sharma, Roambee
FST Soapbox

The Need for Improved Visibility in the Fresh Produce Supply Chain

By Sanjay Sharma
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Sanjay Sharma, Roambee

The Ever Given eventually broke free, but the Suez Canal blockage was just one dramatic incident in a year full of “black swan” events exposing weaknesses in the global supply chain, including daily mini disruptions. Among the lessons to be learned is the need for verifiably better supply chain visibility that goes beyond crowdsourced carrier or telematics data. This article hones in on the significant challenges faced in the fresh produce supply chain, and strategies suppliers can implement in situations to help improve supply chain visibility and prepare for an unpredictable future.

The Reality of Today’s Food Supply Chains

As the global supply chain continues to expand, the distance fresh produce travels to reach the consumer is extended. According to the International Institute of Refrigeration, the lack of a functioning cold chain causes significant food loss; the Global Cold Chain Alliance (GCCA) reports that “one-third of food produced globally is lost or wasted between farm and fork.”

Multimodal shipping, as well as the change in hands before the harvested produce reaches the consumer, makes it hard for food to retain its freshness. Moreover, multiple parties involved in the supply chain create plenty of room for coordination issues, contributing to delays, damaged products, and increased costs. Potential challenges faced while transporting fresh produce include the following.

Reusability and Circular Economy of Plastic Containers

The best way to preserve quality and freshness from source to consumer, retail-ready transport packaging solutions are needed to optimize space, improve temperature control and protect quality into the retail distribution center. While it is an environmentally sustainable choice, renting returnable plastic containers (RPC) instead of corrugated boxes comes with its own challenges. These RPCs get lost or misplaced from the time they are rented, during use to ship products from consumer locations and during the return of the empty RPCs back to the renter.

Temperature Excursions During Transport & Transshipment

Transport losses in a fresh food cold chain are primarily related to temperature and humidity excursions, caused by delayed/improper cooling or refrigeration equipment failure. The biggest problem is not always the lack of data, but rather the lack of timely data that can be used to correct anomalies in time to prevent spoilage.Temperature excursions can occur both while in transit and at transshipment points. During the former, it can happen due to failure of cooling equipment, while for the latter, it can occur if active cooling containers or reefers are not plugged into power sockets for extended periods of time during handling or when on a ship. In air transport, the goods can face temperature excursions during loading, unloading and storage, such as on the tarmac on a hot day.

Damaged Packages

Early spoilage in fresh produce can be attributed to both handling as well as changes in external environment. An example is the impact of atmospheric pressure on bags of potato chips traveling through a mountainous region or by air. The financial impact of damaged packages—one of the leading reasons for increased cost of food logistics management—goes beyond the visible replacement and re-shipping costs; in the case of fresh food spoilage, not only can your brand be impacted, legal issues could result if consumer health is affected.

Safety/Security Issues

Fresh produce is easily contaminable and thus requires extra care in the chain of custody. Today, customers are not just demanding visibility into the authenticity of how their food was farmed, but also how safely it was transported. The right temperature and humidity play a vital role in maintain the quality of the fresh produce reaching the grocery store. Whether it is a Black Swan event like a widespread E. coli contamination of tomatoes that can endanger human lives, or just a daily product freshness issue, there’s considerable impact on the food brand and retail store.

High Maintenance Costs

Maintaining the right conditions, ensuring quality packaging, and facilitating quick transportation increases the cost of a fresh produce supply chain significantly compared to other products.

Lack of Information Accuracy in Data Sharing

Every actor in the supply chain is working toward maintaining the freshness of a product, such as avocadoes imported from Mexico. But tying this data into a common thread is difficult due to disparate systems and processes in monitoring condition, handling and chain of custody. For example, the warehousing company may only measure temperature in a few corners of the warehouse where the fresh product wasn’t technically stored and the trucking company will only have the reefer’s temperature, but the product may have never traveled on that reefer owing to a missed connection. This makes data aggregation inaccurate and unactionable.

The Need for Improved Visibility

Whether it be food losses, increased costs, or food safety regulations, improving the verifiability of supply chain visibility from end to end can ultimately help eliminate these challenges. The following are some measures that can help contribute to food supply chain success.

Enhancing Information Transparency

A clear string of communication from end-to-end is critical to manage the supply chain. Increased information transparency and a clear chain of data can reduce food damages and losses.

Optimizing Maintenance

Maintenance costs can arise out of substandard packaging, lack of adherence to quality standards, and mishandling during transportation. Additional measures can be taken in order to reduce the overall maintenance costs, as well as time and effort spent tackling late or damaged product delivery. Such measures include adding more service locations, improving on time delivery, monitoring in real time, improving reusable packaging (if applicable), and performing thorough quality checks.

Building Faster, Flexible and Precise Supply Chains

Running a lean supply chain is vital to successfully delivering fresh food products. Many items such as yogurts or fresh produce have a short shelf life. Hence, the slightest reduction in transit time has significant benefits. Predictive analytics, image recognition and process automation offer timely alerts to improve actionability.

Where to Begin

You need to take a top-down, end-to-end approach to visibility because a supply chain involves several stakeholders and modes of transport from farm to fork.

Sensor-driven visibility helps implement a top-down, end-to-end approach because it is firsthand and not reliant for data from the actors in the chain of custody. Sensor-driven location and condition in real time offers transparency, collaboration and ultimately, reliable logistics automation.

End-to-end real-time data on inventory location and package conditions can result more transparency and control across the supply chain. The best, and often the only way to wade through both the visible and hidden business costs of in-transit damage is to keep track of your shipments from door to door with the help of an on-demand food and beverage monitoring solution.

When working with low shelf life products like food, reliable supply chain visibility is vital to prevent incidents that can contribute to financial loss. The loss of customer relationships, dealer loyalty, and cascading delays can have a ripple effect and result in further monetary losses as well as long-term business impacts that might take very long to resolve. Implementing the above recommendations can help supply chains recover from accidents and prepare for the inevitable future of “black swan” events and daily mini disruptions alike.

FDA

As States Look to Reopen, FDA Releases Best Practices for Retail Food Establishments

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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FDA

Across the country, many restaurants have been closed for at least two months, while others have been partially closed and offering take-out or delivery to customers during the COVID-19 pandemic. As states begin their strategy to reopen the economy, many restaurants have already opened, and others are preparing for when this day comes. To better help food retail establishments during this uncertain time, the FDA has issued the checklist, “Best Practices for Re-Opening Retail Food Establishments During the COVID-19 Pandemic”, along with a two-page infographic.

The checklist offers guidance in several key areas related to food safety practices, including:

  • Facility Operations
  • Water, Plumbing and Ice
  • Food Contact and Non-food Contact Surfaces (clean, disinfect, sanitize)
  • Food Temperature Control
  • Product Inspection, Rotation
  • Dishwashing Equipment
  • Handwashing Stations
  • Employee Health/Screening
  • Social Distancing

While the food safety checklist covers a lot of ground, the FDA has stated that the list is not comprehensive. “We encourage retail food establishments to partner with local regulatory/health authorities to discuss the specific requirements for their retail food establishment prior to re-opening,” the agency states.

Shane Morris, RiskLimiter, Gleason Technology
Retail Food Safety Forum

Modern Technology’s Approach to Food Safety

By Shane Morris
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Shane Morris, RiskLimiter, Gleason Technology

Many food retailers are dependent on outdated methods of recording product food temperature that include pen, paper and trust given to employees to remember to complete inspections. Unfortunately, this style of inspection completion can be an outlet for foodborne Illness outbreaks. As technologies advance to offer real-time reporting, managing such vital inspections and reports has never been so simple while drastically reducing risk and increasing consumer safety.

Food service management should be asking the following questions on a daily basis:

  • What food items passed & failed the cooling/cooking process?
  • Why did these items fail and what is the monetary value of product loss?
  • Have safety & operational checklist logs been completed on time?
  • What corrective actions were issued?
  • Have temperature-controlled cases failed within the last 24 hours?

With recent breakthroughs in food safety technology, the answers to the above questions can be found in your email inbox, online dashboard or mobile application. There are technologies available that give food service providers the ability to efficiently track and manage their food safety efforts by digitizing any type of food safety, quality assurance and sanitation inspections. One such technology uses a dual infrared/probe Bluetooth thermometer and real-time temperature sensors to help complete food safety temperature checks as well as bringing automation to cooling, cooking, and “time as temp” logs. This kind of technology can be integrated into food safety and risk management tools such as sensor monitoring or location-driven inspection technology.

This proprietary Bluetooth thermometer uses a dual infrared/probe and real-time temperature sensors. Image courtesy of RiskLimiter.

Sufficient inspection software is not just a format for checklist completion. Software developed for the food service industry is behavioral based, meaning the software will guide inspectors to their next question and corrective action; or it automates the processes all together. This includes reminding inspectors when inspections are due in addition to providing snap shots to management on the status of said inspections with the ability to easily pull all data from the cloud.

Automated Logs for Cooking, Cooling and ‘Time as Temp’

Before taking a closer look at how new technology is shaping cooling logs, cooking logs, and time as a public health control; the following are a few terms to remember:

  • Cooling & Cooking Logs: Recording of food product temperatures during cooking & cooling cycles that meet both time and temperature constraints outlined by the FDA.
  • Time as a Public Health Control: Food product whose holding compliance is measured not by temperature but by time spent in the range of 41° F – 135° F after either being cooled below 41° F or heated above 135° F, as outlined by the FDA.
  • Strategy: What is being done with the food product? Is it being cooked, cooled or held for Time as a Public Health Control?
  • Phase: Time and/or temperature constraints set within the strategy. For example, cooling product from 135° F to 70° F within two hours or cooking to 165° F before being served.

As one of the most groundbreaking forms of food safety inspections, automated cooling and cooking logs create the ability to customize strategies for such processes. Cooling and cooking logs are an important aspect of food safety for their ability to complete the product lifecycle that can often times be overlooked. Such logs also help to ensure food product is cooked to proper temperatures before it is served to customers. Cooling log strategies look for product to be cooled from 135° F to 70° F within two hours and from 70° F to 41° F within four hours. Cooking logs are built in similar fashion but may vary on the type of product.

Proactive technology allows food service personnel to automate the cooling and cooking process with sensors that record and save product temperatures during cooking and cooling strategies. Once temperature thresholds are succeeded or anticipated to be missed, customized alerts can notify employees that the food is either ready to be served or that action is needed to avoid product loss.

For example, cooling a batch of rotisserie chickens would typically require an employee to manually check the product temperature every 30 minutes to ensure the rotisserie chickens are being cooled properly. With new technology, this same employee can insert a food-grade sensor probe into one or more of the chickens and walk away. The employee can reference a mobile application and real-time push notifications to ensure the chickens are cooling from 135° F to 70° F within two hours and from 70° F to 41° F within four hours. If the software’s algorithms predict that the rotisserie chickens will not meet the conditions set in the phase, proactive push notifications will be sent to the employee for specific action to ensure proper cooling, which avoids product loss and consumer claims related to foodborne illness. Using this method also allows for overnight cooling logs in addition to saving labor hours, all while eliminating paper.

As demand for increased food safety practices continues to climb, so will the capabilities of behavioral based inspection technology. Equipped with industry leading software engineers along with dual purpose customer support and onboarding services, this space will expand on its software and hardware capabilities to replace all outdated methods of inspection processes.

GREG BALESTRIER, Green Rabbit
Retail Food Safety Forum

Solving Food Safety Challenges in Today’s eCommerce Driven World

By Greg Balestrieri
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GREG BALESTRIER, Green Rabbit

Think about this number for a second: Consumers spent more than $19 billion on online grocery in 2019. While this is still a small segment of the overall $800 billion U.S. grocery market, more consumers than ever before are turning to eCommerce for the fulfillment and delivery of perishable goods, positioning the grocery delivery market to grow dramatically, especially as companies like Amazon continue to innovate in this area.

Adding to this, a recent survey found that 68% of consumers feel the freshness of perishable items is the number one quality they look for in online grocery retail. This is where things become complicated, as shipping perishables introduces an entirely new set of quality challenges for eCommerce brands. This is hindering the market from reaching its full potential until the biggest problem is solved: Ensuring food safety and freshness in every order.

This is a double-edged sword for retailers, grocers and CPGs: Interest in their service is taking off, but it takes just one package of spoiled meat or wilted vegetables to potentially lose a customer to a competitor—or even worse, get someone sick.

Today, spoilage and food safety issues are primarily driven by breakdowns in the cold chain, and it only takes one mishap to affect the quality of food throughout the rest of the delivery lifecycle. To achieve optimal freshness and keep customers happy, grocers, retailers and their trusted partners need to focus on three primary food freshness factors: Temperature, storage and packaging.

Controlling each of these issues starts at the warehouse.

Freshness Starts at the Warehouse

For most parcels, such as clothing, books and other commonly ordered goods, temperature control is rarely an issue. However, facilities that store perishable foods have a constant component to manage—temperature fluctuation.

According to the NRDC, cooling and refrigeration inconsistency is one of the biggest contributors to food spoilage and waste. This is because every food item has a definable maximum shelf life, and storing them at less than optimal or constantly changing temperatures can exacerbate and drastically shorten its timeline.

Mistakes with heightened temperatures on items like meat and poultry can also lead to bacteria growth and foodborne illnesses. In fact, the CDC estimates that 48 million people get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die from foodborne diseases each year in the United States, putting a spotlight on how seriously food safety issues need to be taken.

The Need for Proper Rotation Processes

First expiration, first out (FEFO) is a motto all organizations should live by when stocking inventory. In addition, it is a critical process when working to avoid the food spoilage crisis. It may come as a surprise, but not all distribution centers have this type of rotation system in place. This means organizations could send spoiled food to consumers because an item was pushed to the back of a refrigerator during the re-stocking process and unknowingly shipped passed its expiration date. Not only does this create massive amounts of food waste, tarnish a brand and eat into a company’s profits by replacing low margin products, but consuming a spoiled food item can also be detrimental to one’s health.

While it helps to keep these types of costly errors in mind, as warehouse operations grow, there’s no possible way to manually scale this system.

Luckily, breakthroughs in cold chain technology have produced automated solutions that help organizations track everything from expiration dates to potential recalls. These types of technology support the entire cold chain lifecycle and ensure that warehouses and their grocery partners have the visibility they need to ensure freshness from fulfillment to the customer’s doorstep.

However, when the product is ready to leave the warehouse, it’s arguably about to enter the hardest portion of the cold chain lifecycle: Delivery.

Key Considerations for Packaging

For fragile items, packaging is all about keeping the item protected from drops and damage, but for food the focus should be on keeping the item fresh and at optimum temperatures throughout the duration of transit.

Given many grocers outsource delivery, they have little interest in whether food spoils, mainly because they are unaware of the package contents and are more focused on getting the item to the right location fast and effectively.

Yet there are many obstacles that need to be addressed during the last leg of delivery. What is the temperature in the delivery vehicle? If no one is home or at the office, will the package spoil outside in the heat?

For perishables, it is imperative that spoilage rates, delays in shipping schedules and unattended delivery scenarios are important factors in determining the amount of cold pack and protective stuffing that goes into the package. If these factors are not considered, customers could return to spoiled, melted or even crushed perishables.

Getting Food Fast and Fresh

Today, grocers and retailers are bullish on building out omnichannel food initiatives. However, balancing brick and mortar locations while developing profitable and efficient online delivery systems is often more than one organization can take on. While there are trusted partners designed to support eCommerce fulfillment and delivery, few are purpose-built to handle perishable foods.

Either way, in order to see wide-scale adoption of online grocery initiatives, grocers, retailers and ecosystem partners need to start prioritizing the key temperature, storage and packaging considerations and challenges associated shipping perishable foods. Acknowledging these challenges and implementing solutions for them will not only keep your products and deliveries fresh, but they will also keep customers coming back for more.

Doug MacDonald, Oracle Retail
Retail Food Safety Forum

To Protect Food Quality, Start With the Data

By Doug Macdonald
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Doug MacDonald, Oracle Retail

Last month, the FDA held a public meeting to discuss its New Era of Smarter Food Safety initiative, with a rallying call to create a more “digital, traceable and safer food system.”

FDA Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response Frank Yiannas made it clear that the FDA is not replacing FSMA. Rather, the goal is to build on it, recognizing changes in the food industry over the last 10 years and the technologies available to tackle new challenges.

This isn’t surprising given continuing quality issues resulting in food recalls and shelf withdrawals. Last year, two major outbreaks of E. coli that were tied to consumption of romaine lettuce made a mark on industry perceptions, impacting customer trust, brand loyalty and the bottom line of companies involved were affected. Research by Allianz found recall costs could reach $10,000,000 for significant events.

To achieve the FDA’s goal of end-to-end traceability, the amount of information carried by every food item needs to increase, as will information about its location and condition in the supply chain. Grocers are at the sharp end of the food chain, meaning everything the FDA is proposing will impact them. As well as being merchandisers, they are brand-owners in their own right. They work directly with farmers and growers, they are directly involved in food safety, storage and distribution, and they feel the impact of recalls more than most. Unlike others in the food chain, they interact with consumers daily. This is important to note, since consumers are expecting communication on recalls immediately. In a recent study of more than 15,800 global consumers, 66% of respondents noted that they expect immediate notification of a product recall and another 28% stated they expect notification within a week.1 Furthermore, 88% said if a retailer immediately informed them of an issue, they would be more likely or slightly likely to trust them. The study also found that only 16% of consumers completely trust the product information provided to them from retailers today. In short, the impact of recalls extends far beyond the empty store shelf, and gives the industry even more reason to strive for safety.

High-Tech Next Steps

The FDA plans to publish a strategic blueprint early in 2020 of planned actions to meet its goal, but food brands and grocers need not wait to act. Proven technologies like brand compliance solutions, combined with emerging blockchain track and trace solutions and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors can add new depth and detail to traceability in the food supply chain, and these new technologies are already helping grocers and retailers keep consumers safe.

As retailers have sought a better means to track supply chain movements, blockchain technology has emerged as a potential way forward. Originally developed to manage financial transactions involving cryptocurrency, blockchain has proven to be capable of providing a verifiable record of the movement of goods through a supply chain. In fact, one major retailer has been piloting blockchain for more than a year and has already proven its value on produce items, cutting traceability times from more than a week to a matter of seconds. Some want to go even further and use IoT sensors to monitor the condition (e.g., temperature) of food products in the supply chain. Together, blockchain can help trace the path a product took through the supply chain and IoT can monitor the environmental conditions en route, providing a more cohesive picture of its supply chain journey.

But while supporting a few simple products with one ingredient and a one-step supply chain, such as fruits or vegetables, is one thing, scaling to address the needs of the average private brand retailer—now handling more than 10,000 active products from 2,000 production sites globally—is another. Managing the complexity of a product like tiramisu or a ready-made meal with dozens of ingredients, all coming from different sources, needs a different approach. To address the complexity, many are turning to brand compliance solutions—trusted, real-time repositories of information spanning the entire supply chain. For example, those using brand compliance solutions now have complete visibility of the ingredients in their private label products, helping them ensure labeling accuracy and transparency for consumers. Brand compliance tools also bring improved visibility of the food supply chain, enabling them to verify the status of manufacturing sites and respond quickly to food quality issues.

This combination of detailed product and supplier information makes brand compliance a foundational enabler for any blockchain/IoT-based initiative to improve supply chain visibility and traceability. For example, using brand compliance solutions, grocers can:

  • Confirm the ethical compliance of the supply chain at the point of selection or review, while using blockchain/IoT to monitor the ongoing conformance to these standards
  • Validate shelf life claims during formulation, while blockchain/IoT monitors logistical movement and environments to optimise products’ freshness
  • Record products’ formulation and ingredients to ensure safety, legal compliance and labeling accuracy, with blockchain/IoT monitoring the ongoing conformance to these standards
  • Rapidly identify potential risks across the entire formulation and supply chain, while tracking the affected batches to stores using blockchain and IoT

This convergence of static factual data (e.g., formulation, nutrition and allergens) linked to near real-time traceability and checking offers grocers confidence in the data and supports the consumer’s confidence of an actual product in their basket.

Looking Ahead

It seems clear that the food business is moving in the same direction as airlines and banks and becoming much more data driven. For grocers looking to keep pace, they will need to:

  • Treat data as a core competency. This means hiring information experts, investing for the future, and using data to identify ways to deliver better, safer products.
  • Create a customer-centric value promise. Grocers must go beyond regulatory compliance and use data to improve consumer transparency, support ethical sourcing initiatives, expand sustainable packaging and speed innovation.
  • Go above and beyond. Rather than waiting for FDA direction or simply complying with requirements, brands should take matters into their own hands, hold themselves to high markers and get started now.

In the future, improving the way that we manage the food supply chain is not just about how well we work with trucks and warehouses; it’s about how use information. The FDA’s initiative makes a clear statement that now is the time to modernize our food supply chains. As we look ahead to a new decade, the industry can come together to improve food safety and protect consumers, and we need not wait for the FDA’s blueprint or even the new year to get started.

Reference

  1. Setting the Bar: Global Customer Experience Trends 2019. (2019). Oracle Retail. Retrieved from https://go.oracle.com/LP=86024.
Jeremy Schneider, Controlant

Using Technology for Traceability Adds Dimension to Supply Chain, Promises ROI

By Maria Fontanazza
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Jeremy Schneider, Controlant

“As food safety leaders, it is our responsibility to actively investigate the newest technologies in the market with the goal of providing the highest level of safety for our customers. The regulatory environment is rapidly evolving from a position of hazard management to preventative control, which challenges the status quo while promoting innovation. In addition, we are actively working to build food safety cultures within our operations,” says Jeremy Schneider, business development director, food safety and quality assurance at Controlant. “On top of these mandates, we are consistently being challenged to find ways to improve quality, reduce waste, and assure supply. When taken as a collective mandate, this can be considered a challenge that allows the industry to solve previously unsolvable business problems in new and exciting ways. Utilizing the newest technologies for enhanced supply chain visibility is the solution to some of our most challenging industry-wide problems.”

Schneider has more than 15 years of experience in the food quality, safety, and regulatory sector. His experience spans managing food safety and quality systems within several fast-casual restaurant chains as well as food manufacturing. In a Q&A with Food Safety Tech, Schneider discusses some of the issues that food companies are experiencing surrounding traceability in their supply chain.

Jeremy Schneider, Controlant
Jeremy Schneider, business development director, food safety and quality assurance at Controlant

Food Safety Tech: What challenges are food companies and retailers facing when it comes to real-time monitoring of their supply chain?

Jeremy Schneider: One of the biggest challenges that the industry faces when it comes to real-time monitoring of the supply chain is where to start. As you can imagine, implementing a program that allows for an organization to monitor all shipments, including those that are shipped internationally, by ship, air freight, over the road or by rail, can be daunting.

As with all food safety programs, it is advised to take a risk-based approach to the project. Begin with the highest-risk items within your supply chain and work to your second- and third-tier items or suppliers. When implemented by category over time, you will find implementation less challenging. It is important to remember that when you begin a real-time program, you will start to discover eye-opening information about your supply chain. It’s important that you develop strategies to deal effectively with these incidents.

Another primary concern for the food industry is the cost of implementation, as well as the return on investment. We have found that, by implementing a real-time monitoring solution, an organization is able to dramatically reduce shipping loss because of temperature abuse. Oftentimes, the program provides a net savings for the organization. When considering the cost of wasted food, freight, liability, lost sales and labor, a real-time supply chain visibility solution becomes a cost-effective program very quickly.

FST: Are there any lessons learned from recent outbreaks or recalls regarding traceability?

Schneider: Over the last several years, the industry has made real progress towards a transparent supply chain. However, it must be said that much work is needed to meet regulatory standards and consumer expectations when it comes to traceability. As we have become accustomed to having information that provides insights into all facets of our life, the same is becoming true of the supply chain.

Being able to have business-critical data immediately, such as real-time supply chain and traceability data, is revolutionizing the industry and is allowing enterprise-wide improvements. During a crisis situation, being able to have insights into your supply chain is paramount. Unfortunately, it has become all too common for organizations to take the ‘’out of an abundance of caution’’ approach and remove all products from the supply chain, regardless of lot code or other data, to ensure consumer safety.

The consequence of such an approach is that much more product is removed than necessary, which compounds the effects of the incident. Having had the appropriate traceability information allows organizations to take a precision-focused approach, allowing for organizations to minimize the impact as much as is safely possible.

To help organizations solve this dilemma, there are a variety of technology offerings available to help companies collect and transform data so that it can be easily used. In addition, layering rich data, such as that which is created from real-time Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and cloud-enabled software technology, helps provide dimensional insights into your supply chain information.

FST: How can companies leverage technology to be proactive in maintaining consistent tracking and tracing throughout the supply chain?

Schneider: As we enter an era of smarter food safety, each organization will be challenged to solve some of the most pressing concerns using state-of-the-art technology. The great thing about having actionable traceability data, beyond its uses to support food safety, is that it allows an organization the ability to gain insights into their supply chain at both the micro- and macro-levels.

As an example, when an organization implements a real-time temperature monitoring program, not only are they able to identify and resolve temperature deviations before they become food safety or quality incidents, logistics can then utilize the data to optimize the shipping lane to reduce costs, and purchasing is able to know exactly where a truck is located on its route. Being able to show the value that location traceability data provides across an enterprise helps to improve the organization at every level.