As the industry prepares for upcoming consumer safety regulations around certain non-food, non-healthcare products, the Product Traceability Expert Group, set up by the European Commission in 2011, recognised the adoption of GS1 Standards as a best practice in addressing supply chain traceability needs.
Adoption of traceability standards was just one of several recommendations highlighted in the research support for an informal expert group on product traceability report released by the group following two years of industry-wide dialogue. These recommendations focus on benefits for not only businesses and consumers, but also for market surveillance authorities with the common goal of protecting public safety and health.
"As supply chains continue to span the globe and consumers purchase more products online, ensuring traceability has become more challenging," said Maija Laurila, head of the Product and Service Safety Unit at the European Commission's Directorate General Health and Consumers (DG SANCO) and chairwoman of the traceability expert group.
"The ability to track and trace products helps properly identify dangerous products and remove them from the market more rapidly. It would be interesting to see educational traceability assessment exercises conducted jointly with the businesses or trade associations and market surveillance authorities. In addition, global standards contribute to the success of traceability systems and to overall consumer protection."
GS1 was invited to participate in the expert group and was awarded a contract to provide neutral research and facilitate the group's work. The group's report outlined the following recommendations:
For economic operators, the group recommends labelling consumer products with product identification codes and automating traceability systems using global standards such as ISO and GS1 Standards For market surveillance and other authorities, the group recommends including the use of barcodes in training and, conducting traceability assessments in cooperation with private actors as well as developing best practices to collect information about dangerous products when they cross EU borders. For consumers, the group suggests raising more awareness on the importance of product identification and helping consumers alert authorities about suspicious or potentially dangerous products.
Maria Palazzolo, CEO at GS1 Australia said how proud we are that GS1 standards were recognised by this esteemed, international group of supply-chain stakeholders. "As a neutral, not-for-profit organisation, this is an example of the type of collaborative work GS1 conducts around the globe. We hope this recognition will encourage wider-scale adoption of GS1 Standards for traceability in order to improve consumer safety and benefit businesses."
According to the managing director of Sydney-based consulting company RQA Product Risk Institute Steve Hather, consumer protection was the key driver for the development of the new International Standard for Product Recall ISO 10393 with traceability identified as a key supporting element of the standards.
"Having identified that a potentially unsafe product exists, effective traceability is critical to identifying where the product is currently located and communicating with customers to stop product becoming available to consumers or to remove it from the market. Time is of the essence when dealing with consumer health and safety, and good traceability systems can literally save lives," said Mr Hather.
DG SANCO set up the Product Traceability Expert Group to address concerns about the traceability of dangerous products in the context of RAPEX (the EU Rapid Alert System for non-food dangerous products). The Expert Group focused on identifying best practices while European institutions prepare requirements of the future EU regulation for the safety of non-food products such as clothing, textile and fashion items, childcare articles, kitchen accessories and furniture.
Consumers will also benefit from improved product traceability. "If a public safety issue occurs, efficient traceability systems will help market surveillance authorities' determine if a dangerous product is present and take prompt corrective measures," said Andrew Abercrombie of the Hampshire Trading Standards Service UK. "This also helps ensure that proper information about dangerous products is given to consumers in the event of a recall.
"Many companies may have their own effective traceability systems, but if they cannot communicate with other supply chain partners on harmonized product information through interoperable standards, traceability may stop at their walls, leading to higher collective costs and a more complicated recall process – among other issues." said Emilie Prouzet, Directrice Europe, FCD, France.
Aside from GS1, members of the traceability expert group included EU market surveillance authorities as well as representatives from manufacturing, retail, industry, consumer and advisory organisations including the European Traceability Institute, the French Federation of Retail and Trade, Altroconsumo, and others.
