Traceability and Sustainability schemes boom as consumers demand transparency
11/03/2015
Increasing consumer demand for transparency has led to a growing number of food traceability certification schemes and analytical tools. Consumer concerns about food safety have led to new traceability schemes for a wide range of ingredients, including soy, sugar and corn. The growing importance of transparency presents fresh challenges for the food industry. Food companies and retailers need to decide which ingredients to focus on and then select suitable traceability or sustainability schemes.
Another factor driving this demand is the rising incidence of food fraud such as the horsemeat scandal. It is estimated that up to 10% of all food products could be adulterated. Today, different systems are developping to authenticate food origins, while others are developing specialized software solution to ‘track and tell’ ingredient origins.
An European Report protects consumers and healthy food
Europe, including member countries of either the European Union (EU) or the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), was the only area of the world where food traceability practices were found to be “Superior” in a new report published in the September
Currently, the complexity of following food through a global supply chain makes the process of traceability slow and inefficient.
This is why it’s imperative that traceability requirements and regulations be harmonized across the globe. Industry and regulators need to minimize the potential for misunderstanding and delays due to difficulties in understanding each country’s practices. Harmonizing requirements has been shown to mitigate unnecessary costs of compliance.
At Alifood, we agree with the more restrict regulation about traceability and sustainability, and for this reason we select only easily identifiable food, with common characteristics, identifiable and traceable from farm to table. Sustainability and traceability mean also respecting of food tradition and we think that is a fundamental element for a kind of cuisine as the Italian. For more details about our approach to sustainability and traceability food read the dedicated page on the website Alifood.it.
