Food safety, product tracing, and product recalls are currently at the forefront of both government regulations and industry concerns around the world as the industry prepares for new regulations around certain non-food, non-healthcare products. GS1 is playing an important role in the preparations. Recently, it was part of an informal expert group on product traceability set up by the European Commission's Directorate General Health and Consumers (DG SANCO).
In January this year, this 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.
Last week, GS1 Healthcare US published an implementation guideline for using GS1 Standards to address the FDA's new regulation for Unique Device Identification (UDI). "Using the GS1 System for FDA Unique Device Identification (UDI) Requirements," is designed for medical device trading partners, including medical/surgical manufacturers.
On 16 May, Hong Kong Food Council and GS1 Hong Kong will host the Asia Food Safety and Product Quality Forum 2014, in which more than 200 stakeholders including regulators, industry stakeholders and food safety experts will gather to identify, examine and discuss emerging issues related to food safety, best practices and practical tools to improve the way food safety issues are being addressed across borders.
Maria Palazzolo, chief executive officer at GS1 Australia acknowledged the responsbility his company has been given, "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 Steve Hather, managing director of Sydney consulting company, RQA Product Risk Institute, 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."
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.
"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.
As supply chains become more global and consumers purchase more products online, ensuring traceability has become more challenging. The ability to track and trace products is moving close to being an imperative, to identify dangerous products and remove them from the market more rapidly.
The Product Traceability Expert Group's report outlined the following recommendations:
1. For economic operators, the group recommends labeling consumer products with product identification codes and automating traceability systems using global standards such as ISO and GS1 Standards.
2. 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.
3. 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.
