Food & Beverage Journal Features TraceGains by Thomas R. Cutler

Manufacturing journalist TR Cutler authored a feature article in the current issue of the Food & Beverage Journal, published by FEP Search Group, titled, "Minimal Food Traceability Standard: Agreement on the Basics."
According to Cutler, at the recent Traceability Inter-Operability Conference hosted by the Traceability Institute in Denver, Colorado, a few weeks ago, there was a strong call for a single traceability standard. The messages at this recent conference were the same as those at the early banking conferences thirty years ago - "Adopt a single traceability provided by my company and everything will be perfect."
According to Will Pape, Executive VP & Founder of TraceGains, "The main barrier to widespread traceability adoption by the food industry was the lack of a single traceability standard which could exchange traceability data seamlessly from one company to another throughout all their trading partners in a supply chain."
Unfortunately, each speaker at the conference was talking only about the traceability standard that their company commercially offers and one could only conclude the presenters wanted all of the other solution providers in the audience to abandon their traceability solution and jump on the presenter's bandwagon - "my way or the highway".
Pape insists that this is a flawed perspective on at least four levels. 1. There is the assumption that the lack of a clear interoperability standard is retarding the growth of traceability within the food industry. 2. This assertion assumes that a single standard will result in the best solution. 3. There is assumption that a single traceability company will win all the chips. 4. Full transparency of all traceability information equally shared with all trading partners is a good thing. Based upon our experience in the global credit card industry, we believe each of these assumptions is false.
Pape argued, "The growth of traceability companies is not being impeded by a lack of traceability interchange among companies because most companies haven't even taken their internal traceability conversation to that level. They are only concerned about internal traceability within their four walls, and they think they have already solved this problem with their one-up supplier and their one-down customer so they don't need the help of a third-party traceability supplier."
No single standard will meet all of the needs of every member of a single supply chain much less all supply chains.
Pape believes that accomplishing this objective only requires that a few "standard" things be accomplished:  Agree on a numbering standard or a small set of numbering standards.  Agree on the minimum data elements that must be included by all players to create the ePedigree ownership traceback.  Agree how ePedigree data about upstream suppliers beyond the immediate supplier must be kept confidential until these data are needed during a high-profile recall.
The mission at TraceGains (www.TraceGains.com) is to make the food supply chain safer and more profitable by helping companies produce finished goods faster, better, and more cost-effectively. Supplier Compliance is a food safety firewall that allows companies to detect and eliminate problems in the supply chain before they are incorporated into finished goods and shipped to customers. By reducing ingredient variability, the finished product becomes less costly to manufacture, performs better, and ultimately increases customer satisfaction. Supplier Impact enables companies to easily measure how each supplier affects finished goods quality and profitability, and connects product outcomes and customer feedback to specific upstream ingredient suppliers. Suppliers are continuously scored based on performance of key attributes for each shipment, and rank ordered against their peers. All TraceGains' solutions present findings in easy-to-understand dashboard graphics with full drilldown capabilities, which are available for onsite deployment or delivered as SaaS (software-as-a-service). Headquartered in Longmont, Colorado, USA, TraceGains has direct and partner offices throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. .
TraceGains Inc. www.tracegains.com Marc Simony, Director of Marketing traceability@tracegains.com (303)682-9898