The leafy greens industry is no stranger to food safety challenges. From the E. coli outbreaks of the early 2000s and 2010s among ready-to-eat salad products to the FDA's upcoming water rule, the landscape of requirements facing the industry seems continuously shifting toward improvements in safety and reliability.
FSMA 204 compliance brings forward another issue to the table: traceability. Unlike the other instances of new oversight and scrutiny, however, the new requirements of traceability stand to benefit the industry in a unique way. By investing in new traceability practices, outbreaks in leafy greens could be tracked and pinpointed to specific lot IDs - and from there to the farm, field, and even row of crops involved. This precision could actually reduce the number of blanket recalls that hurt entire commodities.
What's needed now is to unify the traceability data required by FSMA 204 with the rest of the food safety data currently being collected.
Beyond Compliance: Upgrades for Broad Benefit
Traceability is not foreign to the leafy greens industry. The California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA), for example, has required members to have a traceback system since 2007 - but the new FDA expectations handed down by FSMA are an opportunity to update old systems with the learnings of the past decade.
Software options for food safety and traceability are as varied as the operations affected by FSMA 204 - but key to the successful adoption of a new digital platform is robust and practical implementation.
Three tips for an upgraded approach to traceability:
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Eliminate language barriers to communicationApproximately 62% of agricultural workers report being most comfortable communicating in Spanish. Manually managing records across several languages adds stress - but software with automatic translation can streamline data entry and verification.
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Harmonize growing and packing operationsToo often, farm management tools in the field are disjointed from inventory systems used in the packing shed - even when the process is all under one company or cooperative. New software solutions are flexible enough to unlock seamless data from seed to shipment.
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Integrate food safety and traceabilityCentralizing all of an operation's audited data can vastly benefit costs in the case of an outbreak. Inventory and shipment data often lack context; by adding environmental monitoring, sanitation, and other food safety activities, traceability becomes a value-add to control risk.
While a variety of software solutions exist with the intention of enabling traceability, Provision's digital documentation platform offers a suite of intuitive smart tools to make both food safety and traceability simpler throughout the entire supply chain.
Using ERPs for Traceability
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Overly complex - bloated with unnecessary bells and whistles that block straightforward adoption by daily operators for related food safety record
Using Inventory Software for Traceability
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Exist in a vacuum separate from food safety data often required for comprehensive review of outbreaks
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Clunky, not nimble in tracking harvest or sharing data from growers to packers
Standalone Hardware Solutions
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Must plug into a food safety or traceability tool to be useful
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Options with their own software programs require extra cost, training, and ongoing maintenance
Enter Provision - a digital documentation solution built specifically to serve the needs of the leafy greens industry and fully customizable to suit operations of any size, scope, or type.
Powerful integration to harmonize data across networks
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Leverage Provision's partnership with FDA Traceability Challenge Winner Kezzler to unify data from many separate systems through your entire supply chain
Built to unify your food safety and traceability systems
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Centralize all audited documentation; from grower GLOBALG.A.P. to packer PrimusGFS systems and everything in between
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Automatically connect records for harvest, packing, processing, and shipping CTEs in one related sequence - never waste time hunting for specific records again
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One-click downloads put sortable FDA spreadsheets in easy reach
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Outbreaks require more than just inventory lookups; combine relevant environmental monitoring, sanitation, and other food safety activity reports with traceability data for robust context
Cross-border excellence
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Partnership with DNV brings in 15,000 staff across 100 countries to offer native-language and culturally comprehensive implementation and support
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Partnership with Grupo Delcen - the largest food safety consulting and training organization in Central and South America - offers full-service implementation and ongoing support for Provision clients
Aiming for Future Compliance
While the task of becoming FSMA 204 compliant might be a daunting one, growers, shippers, and distributors of leafy greens can be sure that the path to compliance offers many opportunities for growth. Through the careful selection and application of a traceability solution such as the dynamic triple-threat that is Provision, Kezzler, and DNV, the industry can look forward to a bright and secure future.
