Food traceability refers to the technology that enables you to track the food you are planning to buy in the supermarket, across all phases of its supply chain. This is a great way for you to gain access to the never known before knowledge regarding the product’s entire journey.
Now you can know anything and everything about the delicious mango you are holding in your hand. From the place it was grown to the self on the market you picked it up from.
This increases the transparency of the product hence enabling you and all of the other customers to see complete information and history including, but not limited to certifications, temperature data and test data.
Through this unparalleled technology, you will also gain access to the individual harvest dates of the product you want to buy, packaging data and also storage recommendations regarding the product.
Food traceability is a great initiative and stepping stone towards a safer, smarter and more sustainable ecosystem.
Why Food Traceability is Important?
Food traceability is the ability to know the origin of the food the customer wants to buy along with all the stages it has been through such as production, processing, manufacturing, distribution and advice regarding the correct way to store it and even consumption!
Using this technology customers can ensure traceability throughout the supply chain. Food traceability is necessary for food businesses as it acts as an important link between food trade and environment-friendly agriculture.
Hence, food traceability is important for everything from food safety to food security, quality control and efficient operability. Food traceability includes but is not limited to logistics management, food collection, storage and transmission of information about the food supply chain.
What’s more, is that all of these processes can be traced from anywhere in any order using this technology. Another reason why food traceability is so important because it is required to ensure quality.
Blockchain Technology for Food Traceability
Blockchain technology is a ritual part of food traceability. It provides transparency and traceability in just a few clicks within a few seconds for any product available in the market.
It is a distributed ledger technology that stores blocks of information or previous records regarding the product. This information is then linked together using cryptography using extensive mining technology.
Information that has been fed into the system will remain there forever and no person can change it. It is safe to say that food traceability is an emerging need in this era of technology that has changed the globe into a global village. It is a crucial step in making customers aware of the food they consume hence setting up more sustainable food supply chains in an ethical way.
Food Traceability Challenges
High Maintenance Cost
Despite all the advantages one of the biggest setbacks for food traceability system especially for small and medium-sized business is the high maintenance cost.
The cots include but are not limited to labour installations and other complex systems involving the legacy system.
Difficult and Time-Consuming Data Analysis
This problem is commonly faced by large businesses.
The more products you have the most difficult and time consuming your data analysis is using food traceability. This is usually the case because the larger your business is the more the products are and hence you’ll need more suppliers to manage everything.
Keeping up with all of this information effectively and efficiently can be very overwhelming especially for new business owners.
Consumer Awareness
As mentioned above the core purpose of food traceability is to increase customer confidence by providing them crystal clear transparency about your products.
This can help to ensure that your customers keep coming to you thanks to the trust they have in you and your products.
How to Select a Food Traceability System
So the question arises how does one choose the right food traceability system that can carter perfectly to their business needs.
Here are some things you should know before choosing a food traceability system:
Proper Documentation
While choosing the correct food traceability system for your business needs you need to ensure you are opting for a solution that can help you with anything and everything from contact details of suppliers, contact details of customers, list of raw materials and other products you provide, correct batch identification and detailed product information.
Inventory Management System
As a business owner, you want to ensure that you have complete track records of everything from costs to raw materials and inventory.
Having a good inventory management system can hello to ensure that you don’t end up spending all your time and effort in tracking the lost list of products you have to fear no matter where they are to be supplied.
Response Time Improvement
Another thing you want to ensure is the correct response time management. This is important especially in the case of a disease outbreak or any other contamination due to which you’ll have to remove all of your products from the market.
Honesty and Transparency
An unsatisfied customer can damage your company’s reputation. Hence it is important to ensure that you are being completely honest and transparent with your customers because all the information you put in will stay there forever.
Temporary profit is not as important as the confidence and trusts your customers put in you!
Food Traceability Software by Folio3
A great solution for all of your agriculture business needs is the incredible food traceability software by Folio3. By using the latest blockchain technology Folio3 has to offer you can have proper transparency and information regarding your product in just a few swipes.
Moreover, this technology can help you monitor food supply chain management. This can ensure you tracing all your products and avoiding duplication. What’s more, is that to increase the security of the users Folio3’s software is fully verified and certified hence providing no threats to your data security.
All in all, Folio3 provides you with features that can greatly improve your food traceability.