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Ensuring accurate labelling

26 May 2022

Derek Lupton discusses the importance of labelling and traceability for food producers and suggests a solution that can help increase confidence in a product. 

From a supply chain perspective labelling is all about being able to optimise the speed and accuracy at which product labels are printed, and there are several different applications when it comes to food manufacturing and distribution. 

The food and beverage sector needs to ensure highly accurate labelling and traceability processes which can be encoded in barcodes or electronic RFID tags. This helps track materials through the manufacturing and supply chain, and through the distribution chain – even as far as the supermarket checkout. 

The phrase 'field to fork', often refers to the ability to trace a product from its origin, all the way through the supply chain, including the manufacturing, distribution and retail processes, before it finishes its journey in a consumer’s kitchen or on restaurant table. Labelling and traceability are fundamental for any food or beverage manufacturer, who needs to know exactly what ingredients it contains, where it came from, when, where, and how it was tested. 

Supermarket and other retail outlets will conduct regular audits on food manufacturers to review labelling and traceability processes and there are penalties for late delivery, poor quality or badly labelled packaging. Listing the wrong weight or the wrong ingredients, for example, would be a serious transgression as far as supermarkets are concerned and in the worst-case scenario, a serious mistake can result in a product being delisted. Even a minor misprint or incorrect information displayed can result in significant financial penalties.

The financial and reputational repercussions of mislabelling food and drinks and then causing illness, allergic reactions or not considering consumers’ dietary requirements for ethical or religious reasons could be the end of a brand. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions for manufacturers, distributors and retailers can provide this information by analysing and collating all product data ready for printing on the packaging or label. Being able to easily view this data in a dashboard streamlines the production process and ensures far greater accuracy.
 
Customers today also expect better labelling on products, and this is evident from the increased demand for accurate sustainability information. Research suggests that 55% of global consumers are more likely to purchase a packaged food item which is labelled with a sustainability claim, according to recent research by Cargill.

Good data hygiene
Good data hygiene and systems from manufacturers, processors and distributors means that all ingredients can be easily tracked through the most complex journeys. If there is a contaminant found in a product, the manufacturer can use data from an ERP system to locate exactly where else it may be present. From a recall perspective, a problem can be quickly contained or minimised to prevent any further damage being caused by having a suitable traceability. 

Traceability is invaluable for a big food manufacturer who may process tons of ingredients for millions of products that are shipped all over the world. Relying on paper records would make this impossible within a meaningful timeframe, but a digital solution such as Epicor’s Tropos can display a product’s entire genealogy at the touch of a button.

Tropos was developed to be a full-scale end-to-end ERP solution, designed with specific capabilities to improve labelling and traceability. It simplifies vital product information and converts it into a barcode or tag which anyone can scan to quickly view a product's entire history across the entire manufacturing and supply chain. This includes where it came from, the country of origin, the ingredients and where they came from.

A reliable solution that improves the labelling and traceability process will increase confidence in the product, for both the retailer and the manufacturer, and build trust from a consumer perspective.

Derek Lupton is food & beverage consultant at Epicor.


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