• Should I share anything?
• What do I share?
• Can I control who sees the information?
• How can I do this affordably and practically?
According to research into traceability and consumer satisfaction, the average consumer is 80% more likely to purchase a food product made by a company that shares this information with the consumer (as opposed to a manufacturer that does not). Retailers are also more likely to purchase food products from companies that can provide instant traceability details. Further research shows that less than 5% of consumers will ever use such a service, but they appreciate (or require where possible) its availability.
Why would you share traceability details?
• Research shows over 80% of consumers prefer to purchase a product with openly available traceability (where the alternate product is identical in specification).
• Communicate preferred information about the product including farm of origin, manufacturing and growing practices, and proof points such as claims of "locally grown" or "Organic" etc.
• Comply with dozens of traceability and quality standards (see Standards Compliance below)
• Labeling using the QTrace Code can be used with Item, carton, batch, and pallet level identification
• Capture new levels of feedback from consumers. Currently many manufacturers receive little feedback from consumers due to the Retailer being between the two parties. Some solutions encourage consumers to comment on their product experience, giving the manufacturer a new product improvement tool.
• Rapidly implement traceability requirements regardless of business size
• Integrate QTrace into existing software solutions, or choose from solutions already integrated
• Create brand loyalty with consumers and retailers by providing a high level of transparency
How to share traceability details online:
1. Do it in-house:
To do this, you need to create an online database that can be either manually or automatically fed with details of each batch you are manufacturing. This will allow the traceability details you build into the system to be share online when the consumer or retailer enters a batch or traceability code online. Drawbacks with this method is that you need to spend potentially tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars (depending on your required scope) to achieve this outcome, and the continual cost of technology services can be prohibative for companies that do not have very large information technology budgets.
2. Use an Online Traceability Service
There are various online traceability services that allow you to go online and enter the details of each batch of product manufactured, you can then label your product with the batch numbers and consumers and or retailers are able to access your traceability information down to the individual batch or unit. Be careful with which solution you choose, as it is very important that you have the following options or facilities:
• To be able to choose exactly which details you share with your consumer/retailer
• The solution provider is secure, established and has some kind of industry support from experts, vendors, consumers, retailers, or technology professionals specializing in traceability.
• Make sure you can administer your own information at any time. This also means ensuring the solution provider has a policy of not providing information to other parties unless you authorize it to be done.
• Some providers have special features that allow your retailers to place purchase orders online, and even allow consumers or retailers (at your discretion) to check traceability details via a mobile device; such as SMS’ing the traceability code to a phone number and receiving the traceability details via SMS. An example of a traceability solution provider that has extensive additional features is the QTrace service (see http://www.QTrace.com for details)
• Choose a solution that can integrate into an existing solution, for example the ProducePak suite of food manufacturing, farm management, and packhouse management solutions automatically send traceability details to online traceability solutions; making the solution truly seamless and effortless (see http://www.ProducePak.com for details)
• Choose a solution that allows consumers and or retailers to enter comments or feedbacks that relate back to a specific product batch or traceability code.
Source:
www.QTrace.com
www.FarmSoft.com
www.ProducePak.com
www.totalpak.net
