Effective track-and-trace solutions are critical to ensuring products get to where they’re supposed to go while also showing where they’ve been. With the onset of new regulations under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the ability for manufacturers to map product origins is more crucial than ever. And as the supply chain speeds up, it can be more challenging for brand owners and suppliers to track product details from farm to fork. “This rapid pace of operations—and the complexity of today’s supply chain—make efforts to streamline communication between different track-and-trace tools essential to regulatory compliance and the success of brands,” says Tom Egan, PMMI vice president, industry services.
Today’s supply chain is too sophisticated to track and trace product manually. Most manufacturers keep their data digitized within their own business operations. Still, efforts to recreate a product’s lineage in the event of a problem can be exhausting on time and resources. Adding to the challenge is the vast array of product varieties (different flavors, portion sizes, ready-made meals with lists of ingredients for multiple products, etc.) that increase the number of SKUs to be tracked, according to Egan.