Tracing Progress

7/1/2011

Produce traceability is a huge step forward for retailers and consumers alike, but hurdles remain.

At Raley's, the fresh produce department is critical, and providing the safest possible products for customers is a parallel top priority. As such, the company is strongly behind efforts by the industry and the federal government to implement a system to quickly track and trace products suspected of being unsafe.

“We have long been trusted by our customers to provide safe, wholesome fruits and vegetables,” says Jon Holder, senior manager produce/floral at the West Sacramento, Calif.-based chain, which operates 133 stores under the Raley's, Bel Air, Nob Hill Foods and Food Source banners.

“We've always felt it was important for us and all of our business partners to have programs that address risk and provide assurance through third-party audits that they are mitigating any risk to our consumers,” he explains. “We provide Serv-Safe training for 15 employees per store and corporate management. Our vendor standards and specifications include food safety standards, not just quality. Traceability compliance will just reinforce our commitment to food safety and our confidence that we are providing due diligence.”

Holder's comments come in the wake of an outbreak of a virulent strain of E. coli that at presstime was blamed for the deaths of at least 33 people and making another 3,000 sick since the outbreak began in late May. All but one of the deaths and the majority of those infected have been in Germany.

“We have no expectation that this will spread to our country,” said Chris Braden, a spokesman for the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in early June, but his agency warned U.S. citizens who have recently traveled to Germany to seek immediate medical care if they began to show symptoms.

Health officials in Germany advised German consumers not to eat raw tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, while U.S. officials admitted that tracking the source of the illness could be difficult.

The incident emphasized the importance of the new Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which includes a provision that will someday lead to traceability standards for produce and other foods. The produce industry has been working since 2006 to develop industry-wide standards of its own.

“The Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) was spawned in 2006, when E. coli 0157:H7 was killing people,” explains Ed Treacy, VP, supply chain efficiencies at the Newark, Del.-based Produce Marketing Association (PMA). “It killed the entire spinach category for a number of months. It took four lives. That was unacceptable. It cost the industry tens of millions of dol-Jon Holder of Raley's lars. It bankrupted a number of operations that had nothing to do with the outbreak. Multigenerational farmers lost their livelihood.”

Thus, the industry came together through PMA, the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Association, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association and GSl US, to design a standardized industry approach to enhance the speed and efficiency of traceability systems for the future. The vision is to achieve supply chain-wide adoption of electronic traceability of every case of produce by 2012.

“The goal is to be able to perform trace-backs and trace-forwards a lot quicker than what was in place, and to be able to do surgical recalls rather than category-killer recalls, as is in practice today,” Treacy says. “If trace-back and trace-forward could be done in a matter of hours or days rather than weeks or months, it could save human lives, and business lives as well.”

While the initiative has been underway for the past several years, PTI leaders also worked with Congress on the traceability requirements of the FSM A so it would be consistent with industry efforts.

Convos With Congress

“We wanted our initiative to be more prescriptive than the government's,” Treacy recounts. “We wanted to do it on our own. FDA has assured me that what we are doing with PTI will be in line with their regulations. They are frustrated with the lack of electronic record-keeping and the lack of a common identifier, and PTI takes care of that.”

PTI will allow supermarket operators to identify quickly and easily which of their distribution centers received — and which didn't receive — potentially defective products in the event of a recall. “They will be able to identify which of their stores did not receive any of the recalled product. Today, they cannot tell for sure,” Treacy says. Of course, when there's any doubt, all questionable products must be pulled, costing both labor and financial resources.

The next milestone for retailers will come at the end of this year, when growers and shippers must label products, and buyers will need to capture that information on the case labels on products inbound to their distribution centers, Treacy explains. Then they will have one year to capture that information on products outbound to stores or restaurants.

Most supermarket warehouse operations currently have technology in place that can handle this work, he adds, although system updates provided by warehouse management system vendors probably will be required.

Other initiatives are in the works for deli, dairy, bakery, seafood, meat and poultry. “When all of these initiatives are lined up, if a retailer is able to accommodate traceability for produce, they will be ready for the other fresh categories,” Treacy says.

“It appears that the industry is coming together to try to standardize best practices where possible,” reports a white paper on food safety developments by Aldata, an Atlanta-based global supplier of integrated business solutions to retail, wholesale, logistics and marketing organizations.

In addition to PTI, the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) takes a worldwide approach to food safety solutions, and Rapid Recall Exchange, sponsored by the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) and backed by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and the National Grocers Association (NGA), is intended to expedite product recall and withdrawal notifications throughout the supply chain.

Lawrenceville, N.J.-based GSl US, the creator of the UPC bar code system and the developer of Rapid Recall Exchange, also is working with the meat, poultry and seafood industries to establish traceability capabilities in those sectors, as with produce.

For grocers and food retailers, the message is all too clear: The ability to react quickly to a recall or a safety warning is just as much about adhering to legislation and industry standards as it is about protecting brand equity and shareholder value.

Options, Solutions

Meanwhile, numerous companies provide trace-ability solutions, such as software or labeling products, that can help suppliers whose retailer customers already require traceability.

“What I expect is that retailers will say by the end of this year, 'You need to show me you can be compliant [with the PTI], so when I say in 2012 I am ready, you will have the ability to do that,'” predicts Todd Baggett, CEO at RedLine Solutions, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based firm that provides inventory and traceability solutions for grower-shippers across the harvest, packout, inventory and shipping processes.

“With the FSMA effective in 2013, it is anticipated that FDA will release regulations on how to implement traceability. We can expect it will be federally mandated. Not just produce, but all food products will need to have case traceability on them,” he says.

In March, FoodLink, a Los Gatos, Calif.-based online network for fresh food retailers, wholesalers and suppliers, rolled out a new version of the company's commerce platform for perishable goods. Chief marketing officer Kevin Brooks says the product supports industry standards for food safety and product traceability.

FoodLink is an online network that connects participants in the perishable goods supply chain, including retail grocers, suppliers, carriers, brokers and wholesalers. While the network is designed to help retailers manage inventory, reduce unnecessary transfers between distribution centers and achieve invoice match rate accuracy, it also allows them to track product anywhere in the supply chain, Brooks says.

“Traceability requirements drive suppliers crazy because retailers want it in different ways to transmit information,” he adds. “We simplify that for them, providing a single channel to give the information to retailers in the way they want to receive it.”

The Label

An important component in traceability is the label used to track the product, and HarvestMark, a fresh food traceability solution from Redwood City, Calif.-based YottaMark, is already in use. The company says more than 2.3 billion produce packages have been enabled with HarvestMark codes to speed response to suspected recall events and deliver on-demand product information throughout the supply chain.

Today, 2,500 farms in North America and South America use HarvestMark, and its coded labels are on everything from watermelon to chicken — and traced by everyone from warehouse workers to shoppers with iPhones. Consumers can download an iPhone app; scan a package of Driscoll strawberries, for example; and learn the exact origin of those strawberries.

According to Rich Thoma, VP, sales and marketing at Yerecic Label, a New Kensington, Pa.-based reseller of HarvestMark, the HarvestMark solution allows companies to comply with traceability standards requirements and achieve case- or unit-level trace-ability without the need for complex software, a new computer server or added technology.

Sanitation

While supermarket operators rely on suppliers of sanitation services and products to help assure cleanliness and avoid spoilage problems, they also need to be certain that those same companies aren't actually bringing contaminants into their stores.

“A lot of customers are looking at companies like ours and asking how we have traceability in our processes to make sure that no contaminants are entering their facilities through our products and containers,” notes Blaine Morton, director of sales for the North American food division of Zep Inc., an Atlanta-based producer of cleaning and maintenance products.

“We need to assure that our batch codes are traceable from the point of manufacture, in fact, everything that you would expect from an ingredient or food product,” he says. “Our customers have told us that.”

Zep's manufacturing process is certified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Morton explains, adding that the company has taken the necessary steps to provide the necessary traceability.

Zep markets such products as its Biofilm Drain Purge, which cleans organic debris from drains and piping, killing harmful bacteria that cause odors and illness, including such resistant pathogens as Listeria, E.coli and Salmonella.

“The USDA recommends that processors work with sanitation suppliers to develop a sound floor and drain sanitation program,” Morton explains. “Zep's new Biofilm Drain Purge is the newest part of Zep's complete food sanitation program, designed to ensure a safe, contamination-free food operation.”

Philip Bouchard, the company's product marketing manager, points out that Zep offers more than just the chemical products needed to keep stores clean and fresh.

“Our sales reps are considered food safety consultants and are fully trained on SQF (Safe Quality Foods) and BRC (standards from the British Retail Consortium), and can help make sure food is safe for consumers,” he says. “We don't just provide the products that retailers need, but we also provide them with knowledge and support.”

Suppliers are increasingly committing to traceability initiatives, as well they should.

Suppliers are increasingly committing to traceability initiatives, as well they should.

Individual Programs

Clearly, individual suppliers are increasingly committing themselves to traceability initiatives.

Such is the case at Wishnatzki Farms, a Plant City, Fla.-based producer and marketer of Wish Farms branded strawberries and other produce. The company's Fresh QC Traceback and Quality Improvement system provides direct communication with the consumer, explains CEO Cary Wishnatzki. “The Fresh QC system solicits consumer feedback through a highly visible yellow sticker asking, ‘How's My Picking?’” he explains. “Our pickers know their name is on our fruit all the way to the consumer. Higher customer satisfaction and reduced rejections [are] how we are paying for the system, and PTI is a byproduct.”

Village Farms, an Eatontown, N.J.-based grower and marketer of hydroponic greenhouse-grown produce, has its own traceability program in place, according to Satinder Sanghera, the company's director of quality. “All our cases are labeled, identified with the pack house [and] date, and can be tracked within our own system,” she says. “The entire produce trace-ability initiative allows us to share traceability with the industry, and provide further assurance that we have a reliable, high-quality product.”

With pack houses and greenhouses in west Texas and British Columbia, the company revealed in April that it has become compliant with GFSI, which facilitates an integrated supply chain approach worldwide through established criteria in managing production, handling, processing and storing operations. GFSI relies on third-party certification agencies to oversee its program.

In April, Mastronardi Produce/Sunset of Kingsville, Ontario, received the Dupont Food Quality Award for 2010, the first time in the award's 10-year history that a fresh produce company has received the prize presented by DuPont Qualicon.

The company operates under SQF standards, which are recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative, and its warehouses and greenhouses are SQF certified. The company's traceability program enables products to be tracked back to the country of origin, state or region, and the greenhouse within that state or region. There, the produce is identified with a label that indicates the growing farm, date of harvest and commodity name. The company says the system allows traceability from farm to fork.

At Leamington, Ontario-based JemD International Greenhouse Growers, company president Jim DiMenna says staff members have worked with the PTI on its Leadership Council, Communications Working Group and Implementation Working Group, as well as participating in pilot projects and task forces with retail partners. The company has also volunteered for future site inspections by U.S. governmental agencies, he notes.

“We employ several independent audit organizations, such as Primus labs and GFTC, to review and measure our current food safety programs,” explains DiMenna. “Retail and foodservice industries have made it very clear to us as their vendor partner to ensure we are delivering greenhouse produce that is fresh, affordable and safe to the consumer 365 days a year.”

At JemD, as at other greenhouse growers, DiMenna contends that the controlled greenhouse atmosphere provides an advantage over field-grown produce. “In these pristine facilities, the introduction of pests or other contaminants is greatly minimized,” he observes. “We have committed a significant amount of resources, both human and financial, as we continue to set the bar in regards to food safety.”

Editor's Note: In the May 2011 issue, Progressive Grocer presented a comprehensive report on the new Food Safety Modernization Act, implications for the food industry, and developments that are taking place in the industry and the government to enhance food safety. The following article discusses developments regarding track and trace, focusing on the industry's Produce Traceability Initiative and supplier responses.

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