The Produce Traceability Initiative spearheaded by United Fresh, PMA and CPMA is off to a great start. The group’s Steering Committee of more than 30 industry leaders met January 9 in Atlanta, and concluded that systematic and consistent application of common standards across the supply chain is needed to enhance chain-wide traceability.

It’s clear from the committee’s discussion that now is the time to move aggressively to adopt a consistent industrywide approach to traceability.Committee Chairperson Cathy Green, chief operating officer, Food Lion LLC.

The committee reached agreement on four key elements for implementing industrywide traceability standards

1. The GS1 produce traceability standard should be widely adopted throughout the full produce supply chain
2. A formal industry timeline for adoption of standards is needed and will be developed
3. The committee will develop ways in which companies can best show their support and commitment to adoption
4. Traceability standards should be adopted at the case level initially, as the backbone of supply chain traceability, but companies should also move toward item-level coding as feasible.

Traceability is one of the most important issues facing our industry. It not only affects our nation’s health and security today, it will become increasingly more important as time goes on. Kent Rhodes, President WKR & Company

The joint news release issued by the three associations (opens a new window) is now available. In addition, United Fresh will soon post on there website the committee’s minutes as well as presentations and other guides and resources being used as part of this initiative.