Consumer Attitudes Toward Food Safety Impact Pragmatic Responses According to Tracegains

The mission at TraceGains (www.TraceGains.com) is to protect the brand of food and beverage clients by eliminating problems before product is shipped to the customer.   According to William Pape, Founder and Executive Vice President at TraceGains, “Recently we shared the results from the annual food and beverage consumer survey by Corona Research of Denver, Colorado that showed, for the very first time, food safety and traceability were greater consumer concerns than all other food purchase factors except freshness; even more important than price.  A year ago, the same survey found food safety and traceability fourteenth in importance, near the bottom of their list, consistent with its placement in earlier years.  Clearly, the spate of recent food safety incidents has finally tipped the consumer perception scale in favor of traceability, at least for the immediate future and at least as reflected in this survey.”

From a pragmatic, boardroom perspective, executives must answer a few key questions before making any investment to bolster their traceability:

•           Is my current traceability system adequate to protect me from being accused of producing tainted goods?

•           If not, how vulnerable is my company?  Can we cover up any traceability deficiencies we may have with public relations talking points? 

•           Will food safety persist as a top consumer concern? 

•           And is there any way I can turn traceability into my next profit center?

Pape notes, “From our perspective, we think consumer concern about food safety will continue and will likely increase with future reported incidents and accusations.  Consumers will be looking for solid proof versus just verbal assurances that a company has an effective traceability system.  Companies with inadequate traceability are likely to be severely punished in the court of public opinion and government reaction as we’ve seen in the most recent catastrophic recalls.    Unfortunately, we also believe the majority of food companies are unprepared to face the type of recent incidents, and we have strong evidence to support this belief.   Luckily, proven technology solutions exist which can not only protect the brands with highly credible traceability systems but can also turn traceability from a cost center to a company’s new profit center.”

Avoid a Recall

The best outcome for a recall is preventing the recall in the first place. TraceGains continuously monitors the enterprise, co-packers, contract manufacturers, and upstream suppliers for compliance with business rules and regulation mandates. Real-time alerting and risk assessment adds an extra safety net and layer of brand protection. Continuous Compliance and a Risk Assessment dashboard bring exception-based management capabilities to the entire organization.

Minimize Recall Damage

If a problem does occur this unique solution can minimize the brand damage by using patented recall trace-back and track-forward technologies. A recall alert can be initiated within minutes, reducing potentially bad news to one news cycle, and saving customers millions of dollars in long-term brand rehabilitation costs. The Recall Detective analyzes critical risk factors, going beyond material movement tracking; the Recall Minimizer provides instant multiple scenarios for reduced brand damage.

Increase Profits

By correlating and analyzing previously disparate data sets in the value chain, only TraceGains makes it possible to connect upstream inputs, suppliers, and raw materials to downstream outcomes such product quality or customer satisfaction. Firms can coach or replace poorly performing suppliers and counteract profit-draining events within the enterprise, as well perpetuate positive practices internally and throughout the supply chain, to achieve complete profit optimization.

According to Gary Nowacki, CEO of TraceGains, “Stuff happens. No matter how well HACCP, GMP, GAP or other systems work. Our solution continuously monitors all critical supply chain risk points, both within and outside the four walls of an enterprise. The system alerts busy managers to high-risk potential problems on an exception basis, so they can take action on the most critical and preventable problems before they are received for processing or shipped to customers.”

TraceGains Inc.

www.tracegains.com

Marc Simony, Director of Marketing

traceability@tracegains.com

(303)682-9898