把焦虑从回忆管理中剔除 第二部分:

谁需要可追溯性?

In 本系列的第一部分 we established why traceability is important. Traceability helps a food company adhere to government standards which in turn protects the consumer. It protects the food processing company by eliminating risk to its brand and, traceability is important because it opens doors to new opportunities. Traceability is the key to hassle free recall management.

Food traceability and food safety are often used as synonyms, 但它们不一定是一回事. Programs like HACCP are designed to implement food production practices and methods that help make food preparation safe. Food traceability is how the food industry can assure that only safe food is being provided to consumers. A complete traceability system enables processors and distribution companies to track product from the time it enters the facility until it leaves. This helps ensure food safety and allows a quick response to product recalls when warranted. 简而言之, food safety programs like HACCP partner together with traceability to ensure only safe food enters the food market.

那么，谁需要可追溯性呢? The easy answer is that everyone in the food production and distribution industry across the U.S. and Canada need to do their part in completing the traceability chain. The minimum traceability requirement is that products must be tracked through the supply chain one step forward (where product was sent) and one step backward (where product came from) as that product travels from the farm to the consumer. 例如, the processing facility must be able to indicate where they have received product from (i.e. 农场或屠宰场), what product manipulations and additional ingredients were added during production, 以及成品的装运地点. There are a lot of ways to accomplish this requirement and how each company fulfills this requirement is dependent on several factors including:

公司规模及预算:

The size of the company will affect how much of an investment that company can make in traceability. Smaller abattoirs and processors can have a hard time purchasing expensive traceability systems because of the amount of capital that can be 要求 to purchase and maintain those systems. 这两个国家.S. and Canada offer grants to smaller companies to help alleviate the financial burden of adopting a traceability system. Companies that can’t afford electronic traceability systems are still 要求 to provide a level of traceability for their products. They accomplish maintaining traceability through manual records.

市场需求: 

Large food retailers and distributors have raised the bar on the level of traceability they require from their vendors. This demand often pushes processing facilities to move to electronic traceability systems. Co-packing facilities can also be pushed by their customers to provide the traceability 要求 on the products they are packing and labeling. The marketplace can put a lot of demands that eventually end up driving companies into adopting an electronic traceability system whether they are ready to make that investment or not.

营销和品牌目标: 

即使需要可追溯性, providing the general population the ability to track product from “farm to fork” has become a value ad proposition for some brands. Enabling a consumer to track the meat they are purchasing back to the original farm has become a novelty that some processors use to help separate their products from every other product on the market.

对可追溯性的看法: 

Is traceability seen as a requirement or an investment? Far too often companies in the food industry invest the bare minimum in their traceability capabilities. They fail to see how a traceability system is a complete plant system that can provide far more ROI than simply tracking products. “Pen and paper” tracking can be extremely labor intensive. An electronic traceability system can provide a large ROI for companies serious about reducing costs and increasing profits.