Tracing Food In The Supply Chain

“What was really devastating to the industry was that because there was not an efficient way to trace back from the retailers to the grower source lot, the FDA issued broad warnings that affected all tomato growers. Commodity-wide recalls hurt everyone,” notes Baggett, whose company offers a solution to track product from harvest through shipment, creating an electronic record which can easily be shared with customers, and if needed, the FDA, quickly and efficiently.

In light of these developments, Congress is considering a number of increased food regulations– including the Food Modernization Act — that will require retailers to trace the products they buy. Rather wait for a government-mandated solution, the produce industry voluntarily moved forward with developing its own standard. Three associations — United Fresh Produce Association, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association and the (US) Produce Marketing Association are sponsoring an industry-led effort to standardize industry traceability throughout the entire produce supply chain.

RedLine developed its first produce-industry backend solution for growers in 2004 integrated with Famous Software, an accounting, inventory, and management software solutions serving thousands of leading agriculture and fresh produce grower, packer, shippers in North America. The RedLine Solutions software merges financial and inventory backend systems with the output of the worker in the cold-storage area.