Building A Case For A Better Way To Trace: Are Your Current Food Traceability Efforts Enough?

By Jack Payne, Vice President Of Solution Consulting For Process Manufacturing at Aptean

Food safety issues have come to the forefront in recent years. High-profile incidences of contamination, such as Blue Bell’s listeria outbreak and General Mills’ gluten recall, have contributed to a greater need for traceability solutions. As a food manufacturer, packager, or distributor, it is your ultimate responsibility to give customers, retailers, certification boards, and government agencies a view of the journey, all the way back to its origins. With FSMA taking a proactive stance — shifting the focus from responding to contamination to preventing it — implementing and executing an electronic traceability system is more important than ever.

How FSMA Addresses Traceability
Prior to FSMA, the record-keeping requirements in place related to traceability came from the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) from 2000 and the Bioterrorism Act of 2002. As a result of this act, many companies already have internal traceability methods set up. However, without electronic traceability controls, data often cannot be easily shared in a timely manner externally with partners, customers, and suppliers.

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