TRACING THE FUTURE OF AUSTRALIAN FOOD INDUSTRY
The Victorian Freight and Logistics Council (VFLC) has convened the international food chain integrity and traceability project with an aim to assure product safety, integrity, control on every step of the journey from Victorian farms or factories to international consumers.
The initial phase of the project, backed by the Victorian and Federal governments, investigated two specific food product supply chains connecting local producers to US markets via the ports of Melbourne and Philadelphia. The result was a system for monitoring in real/near-time product integrity, track and trace, pedigree and custody.
The system will help buyers be assured of these key credentials for food products, while suppliers can gain more supply chain control. Project director Joe Giblin of Icon Global Link said the high level of monitoring had successfully provided managers with a ‘dashboard’ of integrated data, helping them achieve the end-to-end supply chain visibility. “A range of applications and systems already in use in the businesses will input reports into the system at critical control points, providing compliance with a range of standards set by customers and regulators,” Mr Giblin said.
In the transport operations, he said, the compliance data recorded with chain of responsibility provisions became available to regulators and customers, making the reporting more accountable and simplified. “The system can avert multi-sampling testing because it can demonstrate the security of the product and continuously receive monitoring data. That way, if a temperature limit is exceeded, the ‘use by’ date can be advanced or other action can be taken to avoid wastage,” he said. “Our aim is not to replicate existing systems, but to provide a spine linking these systems and passing forwards information with the movement of the product along the supply chain.” VFLC chairman John Begley said the project successfully brought industry and government together to trial a world-leading concept to boost the state’s food industry in difficult times.
“Overseas buyers are very demanding and our Victorian products need to maintain their share in a highly competitive global marketplace,” Mr Begley said. “We now compete not just on the quality and price of our products but on the competency of our supply chains – and this system will provide a technology solution to help us comply efficiently, while catering for the biosecurity issues we need to address.”
The next stage of the project is the completion of joint Australia-US industry trials, to be followed by an industry education program sponsored by the US industry-government partnership on biosecurity. Victorian Roads and Ports Minister Tim Pallas, in conjunction with the VFLC, will launch the project inception report tomorrow.