Page 43 - Food & Drink Magazine April 2019

LABELLING, CODING & MARKING
standards for product identification, data capture and data sharing to manage ingredient safety and increase the visibility of food ingredients and raw materials in complex raw ingredient supply chains. The group’s aim is to achieve industry-wide accord to improve food safety and efficiencies, while reducing costs. Other members of the working group are SPC, Visy Industries, Labelmakers, Sanitarium, Newly Weds Foods, Lion Dairy and Drinks, Ingham’s, Nestlé, CHR Hansen and FPC Food Plastics.
There is also no doubt that the coding technologies and solutions mentioned above will continue to play a vital role in manufacturing. The seafood sector is one that will very clearly benefit from improved coding practices and the associated traceability. A study by Oceana Canada said that seafood’s complicated global supply chain leaves grey areas where mislabelling can occur, from the boat to the retail shelf or restaurant plate, urging for the stricter coding and labelling laws of the European Union, which have resulted in more transparency through the supply chain.
In Australia, an August 2018 report by the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), said that “provenance branding is becoming more important as consumers become more aware of where their food comes from and how it is managed”, with many markets placing “a premium value on Australian produce”. With full traceability systems providing information at all points of the value chain, the SARDI report said, “traceability is also linked to consumer perception and can also support credence attributes, such as country of origin, source, and production methods”. The report also said effective traceability systems using best practice can provide business benefits including “reduced risk,
greater market access and increased efficiencies”.
MORE INFORMATION PLEASE
Greater consumer demand for product information is just one of the factors driving traceability and transparency.
As Andrew Steele, account director at GS1 Australia said, “Consumers want more information about the products they buy, so suppliers must be able to provide all on-pack product information electronically for omni-channel retailers. Barcodes will have more product data embedded at point of sale, such as use-by dates and batch or lot numbers. Retailers will also need to ensure they are building digital capability to respond to consumers as the need for more product knowledge is increasing.
“Adaptability is the key. The retail market is changing rapidly, so manufacturers need to review and update their strategies more frequently to respond to
personalised approach to eating thanks to sophisticated DNA-based diets, mail-order genetic testing kits and predictive nutrition-based technologies. It’s the ultimate in personalisation, where your nutrition intake is designed based on your DNA”.
Just like the “mass customisation” potential through Industry 4.0 where manufacturers can use data to customise products and make “batches of one” – think Mix My Muesli, Australia’s first custom-mixed muesli – the opportunities for coding with bio-bespoke products are nothing short of fascinating.
A CONNECTED FUTURE
So what will the 2020s bring to coding? Food and beverage manufacturers of the future will most likely have fully connected facilities, and make use of technologies such as blockchain – which is already making waves in food traceability – the Internet of Things (IoT) and automation, among others. But these “smart
✷ MISCODING
“ Provenance branding is becoming more important as consumers become more aware of where their food comes from.”
TOTAL RECALL NIL
One aspect we can hope for as an industry is to see very few – or even no – recalls due to miscoded or mislabelled products in the 2020s.
Unfortunately there are plenty of examples of miscoding. Take the recent pork incident in the UK that had two country-of-origin labels, one saying “Produced in Germany”, the other claiming its origin was British. This stands out for the simple reason that an operator “forgot to change the country of origin to Germany” on new checkweigh-label equipment. Or the more than seven tonnes of chicken nuggets recalled in the USA in January due to miscoding and mislabelling.
There are very easy ways to counteract such issues with current technology: beginning with artwork controls and checks (including using GS1 Australia’s Barcode Check to test that barcodes scan properly at POS), then using vision inspection to get the right label on the right product.
As more manufacturers see the benefits of adopting this technology, the food and beverage industry will experience less of these costly recalls.
consumer trends. Manufacturers need to ensure product and packaging data is accurate, up-to-date and available to be shared easily with trading partners.”
Dr Angeline Achariya, CEO of the Monash Food Innovation Centre, said with this demand for more knowledge about food comes the push for “how the food is prepared and the story behind the story”.
One trend Dr Achariya has identified in the move towards personalised health and nutrition is “bio-bespoke”, which she notes as a “leverage point for future product and services for the global consumer”. Bio-bespoke is where “empowered consumers are adopting an informed and
factories” or “factories of the future” are already here in some form. The first 5G networks will become operational in Australia this year, eliminating the need to wire in “the last mile” for many customers.
This will spur huge innovations at the device and application level as well as – most excitingly – new business models that are limited only by our collective imaginations. ✷
✷ ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Dingley is the CEO of intelligent product identification
and product inspection
solutions company
Matthews Australasia. www.matthews.com.au
www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | April 2019 | Food&Drink business | 43