AMR Research has reported that this food safety issue is not going away any time soon. Moreover, it needs to be addressed by US food producers immediately -- if not sooner. With the latest peanut scare (wasn't there a pistachio scare after that?), President Obama discussed this topic in his recent address to the nation in March.  Obama said that he would be forming a "Food Safety Working Group" to bring our food safety levels up quickly.  This type of attention at the top level may be what it takes to begin to solve this problem.

As we discussed in our last post, being able to trace food from where it is grown to where it ends up is more important than ever -- and paramount to the food safety issue.  And, it is becoming more difficult to do so as approximately 30% of food manufacturing today is done by a third party.  According to AMR, the only way to resolve this problem is to bring all of the various parties together to find the optimal solution.  According to the article, "With this increased complexity, oversight cannot be solved by an individual company, a group of companies, or audit groups. The answer lies in more than technology or labeling. Instead, it needs to be an ecosystem play enforced by compliance. That's the only way to get players that don't play well together to work on solving the problem as a team."

We agree -- we think that it is important to bring the right parties together. We'd argue that technology, however, will have a leading role in helping to solve the problem.  While government intervention may be necessary to make this happen, forward thinking companies can get a headstart by embracing the technology that exists to trace their food.  The up side to this is that by implementing a food-tracing solution, companies will almost certainly see business process efficiencies that will result in savings to the bottom line.  Hence, safe food and improved ROI.

 Here's why this is even more important . . . the article also reports that not only is shareholder value driven down significantly whenever a recall occurs because of tainted food, but that the average company write-off is $20 million.  And that is not to mention the fact that consumers may think twice when picking up the next bag of peanuts for who knows how long?

As we consult with our customers in this space, we are seeing a greater sense of urgency around putting the right technology in place to allow them to trace food from "the field to fork."  And, that's a good thing.  Through the use of more effective inventory management systems and mobility solutions, there is simply no reason not to be able to trace food in case something goes awry.  In this case, technology is definitely our friend.

Have a great week!