A consistent increase in food recalls over the past decade has sparked an increased focus on food safety for buyers and suppliers. 

At iTradeNetwork, food safety is a priority for our customers and our newest solutions were featured in our Next-Level Traceability Webinar Series, including our Label-Less Trace solution for lower-risk produce and commodities.

The Challenges

We know about the challenges within the produce food supply chain better than anyone. We know the complexities to tracing the paths of anything harvested. It comes down to three issues:

  • Incomplete product origination data: PTI is a universal standard, but it’s not universally adopted.

  • Coordination challenges: Different commodities have different processes. For instance, how you process romaine and strawberries is different from how you manage lower-risk items, like potatoes.  

  • A lack of common, accessible data storage: If buyers and suppliers are managing the process through spreadsheets and EDI alone, there can’t be a fast, efficient, uniform process for food supply safety.

“These are just three of the reasons traceability is so hard for buyers and suppliers,” said Mike Anderson, Vice President of Sales Solutions at iTradeNetwork. “These challenges are just the beginning when it comes to traceability because there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. But at iTrade, we did figure out how to innovate a one-size-fits-many solution,” he continued.

Our New Label-Less Trace Solution

iTradeNetwork was determined to find a better way to trace food and ensure safety for our customers. We tasked our experts to create a solution that solves the three main issues for buyers and suppliers and make it fit, without friction, into our communities’ workflows.

iTrade already has established itself as a leader in traceability using physical labeling. Now, we’re the first in the industry to create electronic traceability with this new Label-Less solution.

How does it work?

We are fundamentally changing the way we think about traceability from being a label-only exercise to a rich data opportunity, based on the data that already exists in our 8000+ member trading partner network. To start, that existing data creates a product's traceability profile.

Next, we already know the product quantity and data details, like lot and harvest date, so it can be digitally associated with the purchase order - no label printing required. 

What does that mean for your business? It means you’ll still have that full record for all the commodities so you can meet buyer requirements. Plus, you will already have the information needed to initiate product recalls through iTradeNetwork’s incident and recall management solution.

Is Label-Less Trace Right For You?

Register to watch our webinar on-demand to learn more on how our new Label-Less Trace solution works, and the successful outcomes you can experience by enhancing traceability through iTradeNetwork’s next-level platform.