BEST PRACTICE
Romaine Seguin
is president of UPS Global Freight Forwarding, where she oversees air, ocean and rail freight forwarding, as well as brokerage and supplier management, for the 220 countries and territories UPS serves around the world. She can be reached at rseguin@ups.com.
Supply Chain AGRITECH HELPS TRACK FOOD FROM FARM TO TABLE
The traceability of products is becoming increasingly important to consumers, who want to know exactly what is in the food they eat. — Romaine Seguin
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APRIL 2021 | i4Biz.com
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an you imagine a day when everything our bodies consume is completely traceable from its original source and we have visibility into the agricultural supply chain? Traceability is the ability to track all processes from procurement of raw materials to production, consumption and disposal in order to clarify when and where the product was produced, who produced it and how it was handled along the way. Coming out of this pandemic, there will be more pressure and scrutiny on food security and the traceability of products delivered from the marketplace to the consumer. For this month’s theme of Sustainability and Agriculture, I want to share what I’m seeing in the market from my perspective in the supply chain and how things are changing. We all have seen food products recalled, and sometimes we may have even purchased food that had to be destroyed. It is critical to know where your food comes from, especially when recalls occur. For food products, traceability is a must. Properly managed, it allows suppliers and consumers to locate the
source of the product and track how it got from Point A to Point B. And soon, food traceability in the U.S. might become even more transparent to the consumer. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration has proposed additional traceability record-keeping requirements for anyone who manufactures, processes, packs or holds foods on its Food Traceability List. The list includes certain cheeses, eggs, nut butters, fruits, vegetables, herbs, fish, shellfish and ready-to-eat deli salads.
Tracking Your Supply Chain
As I understand it, there are six elements involved in adding transparency to the food supply chain for agricultural products. No matter what industry you’re in, you might think about adding these types of tracking into your organization’s supply chain: PRODUCT TRACEABILITY. The location of the product throughout the production process. PROCESS ACCOUNTABILITY. How the product was made, including how
