Food safety and the traceability issue

From January 1st 2005 the new European Food Safety Authority introduced Regulation EU 178/2002, laying down to Member States the general principles and legal requirements for food safety. The principle aim being to protect the health of the consumer with an integrated approach to food safety throughout the entire production and distribution chain – from animal feed through primary production, processing, manufacture, logistics to final sale.

Article 18 of this Regulation covers the vital area of ‘Traceability’ which states:

“The traceability of food, feed, food -producing animals, and any other substances intended to be, or expected to be, incorporated into a food or feed shall be established at
all stages of production, processing and distribution.”

This therefore places a legal responsibility on responsible food business operators to have systems and procedures in place to identify who has supplied what product to them and when. The need for comprehensive and accurate labelling thus becomes the pivotal and vital link in the traceability process – as well as having documented up-to-date information immediately to hand.

One need only look back to recent food safety incidents – Sudan 1 and other product recalls; various bioterrorist threats, for example - where the need to rapidly activate appropriate measures to identify and isolate foodstuffs was vital in preventing serious risk to human health, animal health and the environment. Sudan 1, which prompted the largest recall of food products in UK history, was identified as being an ingredient in over 600 other products, so fast and effective traceability became a ‘headline’ issue. Article 18 is designed to ensure the fastest possible reaction in such emergencies.

Benefits

The Food Standards Agency believes that robust traceability systems in the food chain not only have an important part to play in helping to protect the interests of consumers but also they can also bring wide benefits to businesses.

PRISYMID, with over 20 years of global operating experience under the increasingly strict regulations of the food and drugs industries, has highlighted six main roles for such systems :

• To provide information to assist in process control and management e.g. stock control, material usage, quality control, meeting regulatory demands.

• To help when problems may arise e.g. processing issues or product recalls.

• To provide hard evidence about products in cases of consumer concerns and to support claims for your products.

• To help reduce insurance premiums through proof of effective quality management.

• To boost overall process efficiency and product quality.

• To ensure safety requirements are exceeded for your customers and to meet
current EC and US legal requirements.

Getting started

Traceability systems are joined-up record keeping systems which, ideally, should fit easily into the current working practices of the business including integrating smoothly into existing MRP and ERP systems. Much may already be in place – possibly through manual paper-based systems - but the complexity of the number of ingredients, the need to identify individual batches, to handle bulk ingredients and the speed to access real-time information, more often demands the move or upgrade to IT-enabled systems.

Barcodes and RFID (radio frequency identification) tags are proven technology, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, that allow for the globalisation of any business’s activities. Data collection equipment – e.g. label printers, barcode scanners and readers – also add other operating efficiencies.

Compatibility between the software for barcode label printing or RFID tag coding and the hardware for recording and reading the information is vital. Suppliers, such as PRISYMID that have successful track-record in other critical industries such as pharmaceuticals, life sciences or logistics have obvious advantages because of the experience they can apply in providing solutions.

Total ‘turnkey’ solution

PRISYMID can provide a total solution to the food and drink industry in order to meet most companies’ traceability objectives. Not only can customised labels be designed and printed ‘on demand’ but also barcode and RFID identification methods are easily originated, encoded, verified and implemented.

Our PRISYM FoodTrace software can be operated from a wide range of Wi-Fi or narrow band RF data capture devices including hand-held PDAs, fork-truck mounted terminals, barcode scanners and images and desk-top PC workstations. It will also operate on any mobile device running Windows CE or Pocket PC.

The range of PRISYM software has been developed and enhanced by our own development team for over 20 years and provides highly flexible solutions that can also be customised to meet almost any specific customer requirements.

The successful project management of such turnkey software/hardware operations cannot be left to chance, so seeking good, solid advice will be the first step on the road to installing traceability systems, which will undoubtedly narrow down the choice of potential supplier if only from a confidence point of view. The cost involved may be less than you think, but the benefits all-round could have very positive effects on your business and on your competitiveness.

For further information on PRISYMID Limited’s products and services, please call tel: +44 (0)118 936 4400 or email info@prisymid.com. Alternatively, visit www.prisymid.com.

SPECIAL READER OFFER: Be one of the first 25 people to respond to this article and you will have a chance to purchase the standard PRISYMID FoodTrace software package at HALF PRICE : e-mail to:sales@prisymid.com