Fighting Food fraud with data

Food fraud and food safety are among the top concerns for food and beverage manufacturers – and for consumers.  Industry leaders have deployed process solutions to support supply chain transparency and traceability, in an effort to ensure the safety and authenticity of their recipes and formulations.

Particularly in an age where farm-to-fork labels are indicative of the freshest, most healthy products, it has become essential to track and trace ingredients to their source, and to maintain a clear, unbroken record to safeguard the quality and reputation of each product.

There are serious risks associated with food fraud, improper labeling and incorrect provenance maintenance – health, economic and legal risks.

However, the greatest challenges can be easily sorted with data integrity – maintaining a clear, accurate chain of custody from the ingredient sourcing to finished products on the grocery store aisle.

To successfully track food products throughout the supply chain, transparent processes and traceability, accurate information, data exchange mechanisms and integrated data management process solutions are essential.

Global buy-in from food producers

In recent years, food manufacturers have accepted additional responsibility for ensuring the safety and quality of foods.  Given the global expansion of the food supply chain, international regulatory agencies are requesting that products pass through multiple inspections and comply with local, regional and global requirements.  Via audit and review, these agencies hope to prevent – or at least reduce – the adverse events that occur with food fraud and perhaps even eliminate food that is not safe for consumer consumption.

Although these requests from agencies require extensive record keeping, transparent audit trails and accountability for all processes, most manufacturers are stepping up to voluntarily comply – and in many cases, exceed the requested compliance.  They understand that their reputation and the health of their brand depends on their ability to provide safe food.

Manual processes do not work

Manually organizing inventory management, standard operating processes and product traceability can be time consuming and the results are subject to data entry errors – especially for producers who do business in the global marketplace.

Laboratory information management systems, or LIMS is the key.  LIMS automatically monitor supply levels, automate ordering processes, and eliminate inventory fail points to ensure smooth production.  Food safety is monitored, including potential hazards and preventative measures – LIMs provides the process solution to maintain the highest level of data integrity.

Integrating LIMS

For food safety and integrity – and for speed, efficiency, and traceability for regulatory compliance – food manufacturers employ LIMS as an automated process solution.  Coupled with innovative PLM, producers effectively manage formulations and associated data to automate workflows, enhance quality controls and integrate data tracking supports and specifications conformity.   LIMS also delivers key features to automate daily reports and operations for maximum optimization in planning and workflows.

SpecPage laboratory information management solution, SpecLIMS, provides the foundation for superior analytics and comprehensive traceability in compliance with regulatory requirements and best laboratory practices.  It delivers integrated, high-performance test procedures and analysis plans, work lists and progress checks and standardized, automated approval options that provide maximum efficiency.

The introduction of comprehensive PLM and LIMS process solutions deliver an audit trail, proof of compliance and empower team access for data review, to ensure that issues can be quickly identified and corrective actions can be taken to prevent potential issues.

Benefits of LIMS  

• Promote food safety and eliminate food fraud
• Rapid results, increased revenue and return on investment
• Optimize and leverage data for quick reaction to consumer demands and efficient ingredients management
• Streamline operations and objectives via best practices
• Deliver maximum customer values at lowest cost
• Provide sustainability, traceability and transparency in the supply chain

SpecPage suite of process solutions, like PLM and LIMS, provide the foundation for producers to digitize and leverage their data by combining digital tools to capture and manage the flow of information throughout the research and development, production and manufacturing cycle, creating visibility, transparency, traceability and cohesive communications to facilitate essential collation and collaboration for the accumulative data.