Bakery buys into concept of complete traceability
Canada, has installed an 'end-to-end' approach to quality
management that starts in the field and ends the bakery door. The
company is using software installed by Canadian technology provider
Linnet to select and blend Canadian wheat with specially selected
crops grown in the UK and Europe according to their own unique
flour recipe.
This means that for each batch of bread, the firm can track ingredients to ensure quality and freshness.
"The experience we've had clearly shows that the consumer isstarting to equate quality with traceability and the benefits of producing traceable food outweigh the costs of implementation," said Sandra Craven, director of agriculture at Linnet.
Linnet has applied the principles of supply chain management to the very start of the chain. Its Croplands software connects physical attribute information across the supply chain to create a vertical information system that allows companies to identify inefficiencies, ensure food safety and integrity, and better manage relationships with partners, growers and inspection agencies.
The company believes that the software allows food processors to quickly realise a positive return on investment and meet regulatory traceability requirements at little cost.
Another client, a potato processing firm, ships 90 per cent of its production to a fast food company in the United States. Linnet claims that its software system allows the firm to trace a product from the restaurant back to the field where it was grown inunder 60 seconds.
The ability to accurately and quickly trace the origins and destinations of contaminated food shipments may reduce the impact of pathogen outbreaks. In the case of biotech foods, the implementation of vertical information management systems may increase consumers' perceptions of control, and help to improve the image of the biotech food industry.
Likewise, the installation of traceability procedures could help an organic manufacturer prove to customers where all the ingredients have come from.
"The real and growing market for organics supports the claim that people are willing to pay to ensure the quality of the food they buy," said Patrick Miner, Linnet's executive vice-president.
"However, a company must change its management philosophy to focus on characteristics of incoming raw materials and not just the outgoing product."
Greater traceability in the food supply is inevitable. Legislation, designed to restore Europeans' confidence in the food supply, calls for stricter labelling and tracing. And recent food safety and quality incidents have strengthened consumer demand for increased information about the physical attributes and flow of materials across this supply chain.
A recent Angus Reid poll in eight countries - France, Canada, Germany, UK, Australia, the US, Japan and Brazil - found that 68 per cent of people aware of genetically modified foods would be 'less likely' to purchase a food if they knew it contained biotech ingredients.
Software-supported vertical information management is emerging as both a solution and a marketing opportunity for the food industry. Vertical information management technologies that connect the farm to the end-users, managing the products and relationships between agents along the supply chain, are becoming increasingly popular.
