This website uses cookies primarily for visitor analytics. Certain pages will ask you to fill in contact details to receive additional information. On these pages you have the option of having the site log your details for future visits. Indicating you want the site to remember your details will place a cookie on your device. To view our full cookie policy, please click here. You can also view it at any time by going to our Contact Us page.

Close

Turning traceability into a marketing advantage

23 October 2023

Mathew Simpson explains that having the right systems in place to manage traceability requirements will offer manifold benefits in addition to adhering to compliance requirements.

Traceability is mandated in law and many food industry standards such as Codex Alimentarius and the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety. This has improved food safety and product quality but it also imposes costs on manufacturers. 

There is a direct administrative cost to recording and managing all the required information. Processors with paper-based systems have to employ people to copy down batch numbers, collate records, file them securely – and retrieve them in the event of an audit or genuine recall situation.

Where one ingredient, such as sugar, goes into many different recipes, it becomes difficult to balance the delivered batch of sugar to all of the smaller quantities which were weighed out for individual recipes. When a common pre-mix is further processed into many different end products over the course of several days it can get really complicated.

Rigid product specifications also tend to reduce flexibility. In the past, a shortage of cane sugar could be easily remedied by using beet sugar, which is chemically the same product. But if you specified cane sugar, you must use it, or get written consent from your customer for a substitution. Most manufacturers pre-empt this issue by writing alternatives into the specification. This solves one problem, but it makes another – MRP planning becomes more difficult because you need to know which substitutes are permitted in which recipes and this is a lot of information to collate! 

Yet, on the plus side the costs and systems required to ensure product traceability not only reduce the risk of recall, but can also help improve efficiency and profitability by reducing quality-based rejects and rework. And there is a further bonus – traceability supports provenance claims, which gives products a premium.

Image enhancing
The provenance of a brand projects prestige and, for consumers, it delivers the reassurance of product quality. Knowing where a product came from gives them more confidence that they are not buying unsafe or poor-quality items, and that the food – and all its ingredients – are genuine. 

Traceability to region has become commonplace on product labels. And if this can be extended further to the exact source, such as the farm where a joint of beef came from or the dairy that produces a particular cheese, brand owners can create an image of exclusivity for a product that sets it apart from its rivals.

An effective Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system will not only ensure that products can be traced back to their origins or forward to their destination but also deliver a virtuous system of quality assurance, product consistency and increased efficiency. 

During the production process, for example, where the ERP is integrated into the weighing scales and scanners, the instructing, doing and recording steps can be combined into a single routine which assures traceability within the process. The system instructs the operator by displaying the plan or the recipe along with work instructions. By scanning the item, the operator directly records the batch being used. In the act of weighing, the operator follows the instructions and records the weight taken. 

In following these steps, the operator did nothing more physically than they did in a system without traceability except scanning a barcode. Yet through this one additional procedure, traceability is assured. 

Equally important, this means that the stock position for all the ingredients (and their approved substitutes) will be known in real-time. Therefore, integrated planning functionality can calculate the exact requirements for each ingredient and flag up a shortfall –and an approved substitute - in advance. 

Digitalised traceability systems can turn costly legal requirements into easy routines. They will ensure all statutory requirements are met while at the same time providing end-consumers with product provenance and enhanced quality assurance that offer potential marketing benefits.

Mathew Simpson is Sales Manager, UK and Ireland at CSB-System.


Contact Details and Archive...

Print this page | E-mail this page