Leafy Greens Traceability Pilots Show Value of Sharing Product Info

According to a new report from six industry organizations outlining four months of leafy greens traceability pilots with such supply chain partners as growers, distributors and independent and chain retailers, investigations into foodborne illness outbreaks could be streamlined and run more effectively if the partners provided extended product information during tracebacks.

Further, the use of the standard Produce Traceback Template to exchange pertinent product information was found to speed up tracing procedures. All three of the pilots, which were conducted July through October, successfully traced the source of the affected product.

The six organizations involved in the report were FMI – The Food Industry Association, GS1 US; the International Foodservice Distributors Association, the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), the Produce Marketing Association and United Fresh Produce Association.

The pilots in the study tracked romaine lettuce through three separate supply chains, beginning with actual consumer purchases made with loyalty cards or credit cards. Small teams of industry experts took on the FDA’s role of conducting the traceback, a process that included 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 enabled an item to be traced back to its source. The groups conducting the traceback analyzed the information provided by each supply chain node to determine next steps.

Although the pilot participants said that they would adopt the template going forward, the pilots uncovered opportunities to refine it and highlighted the need for a greater emphasis on education. The report offered guidance on future use of the template, including further industry training and modifications to boost effectiveness and ease of use.

However, the data that allowed each of the teams to independently and successfully identify the finished product lot purchased by the consumer isn’t currently captured by the template. This information included business intelligence such as sales data, stock rotation, inventory controls and delivery schedules, all of which were crucial in establishing the scope of the traceback.

“As outlined in the New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint, pilots like these are necessary to determine what is needed for traceability to further scale, such as testing interoperability and public and private data sharing,” noted Bryan Hitchcock, executive director of Chicago-based IFT’s Global Food Traceability Center, on behalf of the six organizations. “The pilots provided valuable insights that will inform future outbreak response and recall protocols, helping industry to work together to support the FDA’s focus on tech-enabled traceability.”