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National & World Ag News Headlines |
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Industry Groups Release Report on Leafy Green Traceability
USAgNet - 12/04/2020
A group of six industry organizations today released a report outlining four months of leafy green traceability pilots with supply chain partners, including growers, distributors and both independent and chain retailers, offering a detailed response to the request by
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (U.S. FDA) for improved traceability in the food system.
The three pilots, conducted July through October, showed that investigations into foodborne illness outbreaks could be streamlined and conducted more effectively when supply chain partners provided extended product information during tracebacks.
Additionally, the use of a standard template called the Produce Traceback Template to exchange pertinent product information was found to enhance the speed of tracing procedures. All of the pilots were successful in tracing the source of the affected product.
The six organizations that led this industry activity included: FMI-The Food Industry Association; GS1 US; the International Foodservice Distributors Association (IFDA); the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT); Produce Marketing Association (PMA) and
United Fresh Produce Association (United Fresh). The pilots tracked romaine lettuce through three separate supply chains, starting with actual consumer purchases made with loyalty cards or credit cards. Small teams of industry experts mimicked the U.S.
FDA's role in conducting the traceback, including determining the data to be requested and how to format the requests for such data. Supply chain members, starting with the point-of-sale or point-of-service, used the template to provide key data elements that
allowed an item to be traced back to its source. The expert groups conducting the traceback analyzed the information provided by each supply chain node to determine next steps.
Although the participants stated they would adopt the template in the future, the pilots revealed opportunities to refine the template and highlighted the need for a greater focus on education. The pilot report provides guidance on a path forward for future use of
the template including additional industry training and modifications to maximize effectiveness and increase ease of use.
Notably, the data that enabled each of the teams to independently and successfully identify the finished product lot purchased by the consumer is not currently captured by the template. These data included business intelligence such as sales data, stock rotation,
inventory controls and delivery schedules. These were critical in bracketing the scope of the traceback.
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