Traceability: farm, packhouse, food manufacturing

Produce Traceability Initiative PTI made easy (PTI)

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:28:45 -0700

Implementation of Produce Traceability (PTI) Initiative made easy

The Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) is sponsored by Canadian Produce Marketing Association, Produce Marketing Association and United Fresh Produce Association, designed to help the fresh produce (fruit and vegetable) industry maximise the effectiveness of current traceability procedures, whilst developing a standardised industry approach to enhance the speed and efficiency of traceability systems for the future.

The Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) has a bold vision which outlines a course of action to achieve supply chain-wide adoption of electronic traceability of every case of produce by the year 2012.

Implementation of the Produce Traceability Initiative / PTI can be made easy using software tools such as ProducePak Farm & Packhouse management solutions.

Using ProducePak Farm Software, all farming records for PTI traceability are collected during the normal farming process via computer or PDA device. ProducePak Farm Management systems manage, plan, and monitor virtually all activities across the farm including budgeting, planning, materials requirements planning, labour requirements planning, cash flow planning, spray, irrigation, planting, harvesting, observations, and more. This traceability information is then shared with ProducePak Packhouse modules.

The ProducePak Packhouse modules provide comprehensive management of the packhouse processes, including quality control, stock and inventory control, packing, grading, sorting, storage (long or short term), sales orders (purchase orders), PTI Produce Traceability Initiative compatible labelling, PDA based barcode scanning (mobile) of pallets and stock, dispatch, sales mangement and analysis. The automatic integration of PTI processes into the ProducePak Packhouse management process makes PTI an easy implementation by providing automatic PTI (Produce Traceability Initiative) management and enforcement.

Printing of labels for PTI (Produce Traceability Initiative) is a very small fraction of the capabilities of ProducePak, however, another example of how ProducePak makes clients farms and packhouses easier.

Visit ProducePak Farm Management for more information.
Visit ProducePak Farm & Packhouse Management for more information.

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The Origin of Traceability

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:03:00 -0700

Summary of Traceability
Traceability is a tool that can be used to provide important information that can be used to build trust between a consumer and the producer of food. Tracing is especially useful to detect the cause of quality problems. Most of the time traceability is associated with the follow up of serious incidents. It can also be used to find back production and packaging problems, such as labels that are wrongly placed, errors in coupons or price indication, taste problems in a specific batch. Traceability is increasingly being used to guarantee certain food attributes such as organic or fair trade production and processing.
ISO (International Organization for Standardization), which develops voluntary international standards for products and services, defines traceability as the “ability to trace the history, application, or location of that which is under consideration.” This definition is quite broad.
The definition of traceability is necessarily broad because food is a complex product and traceability is a tool for achieving a number of different objectives. As a result, no traceability system is complete. A system for tracking every input and process to satisfy every objective would be enormous and very costly. Consequently, firms have developed varying amounts and kinds of traceability. Firms determine the necessary breadth, depth, and precision of their traceability systems depending on characteristics of their production process and their traceability objectives.

Breadth describes the amount of information collected. A recordkeeping system cataloging all of a food’s attributes would be enormous, unnecessary, and expensive, few, if any, producers or consumers would be interested in all the information. The breadth of most traceability systems would exclude some of the food’s attributes.
Depth is how far back or forward the system tracks the relevant information. For food safety, the depth of the traceability system depends on where hazards and remedies can enter the food production chain. For some health hazards, such as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease), ensuring food safety requires establishing safety measures at the farm. For other health hazards, such as foodborne pathogens, firms may need to establish a number of critical control points along the entire production and distribution chain.

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Precision reflects the degree of assurance with which the tracing system can pinpoint a particular food product’s movement or characteristics. In some cases, the objectives of the system will dictate a precise system, while for other objectives a less precise system will suffice.
Traceability systems also help firms isolate the source and extent of safety or quality control problems. This helps reduce the production and distribution of unsafe or poor-quality products, which in turn reduces the potential for bad publicity, liability, and recalls. The better and more precise the tracing system, the faster a producer can identify and resolve food safety or quality problems. Many buyers, including many restaurants and some grocery stores, now require their suppliers to establish traceability systems and to verify, often through third-party certification, that such systems work.

Increasingly, the food industry is tailoring goods and services to the tastes and preferences of various groups of consumers. Some innovations involve credence attributes, characteristics that consumers cannot discern even after consuming the product. Credence attributes can describe content or process characteristics of the product. Other innovations involve Content attributes which affect the physical properties of a product. Finally, Process attributes do not affect final product content but refer to characteristics of the production process. Since, in general, credence, content and process attributes are all difficult for consumers to discern, traceability is an indispensable part of any market for process credence attributes—or content attributes that are difficult or costly to measure. The only way to verify the existence of these attributes is through recordkeeping that establishes their creation and preservation.

Origins of Food Traceability
Traceability systems emerged in the mid-1930s in Europe as a way to demand and by public sector action to improve food safety assurance. Capitalizing on the attention to this issue, food marketing strategies have arisen to use traceability systems to support branding. Such strategies prove authentic origin of high-value food, such as French champagne. In recent years, such systems have also been called for by increased consumer can be seen in recent labeling trends, such as organic, fair trade, or low carbon production. As suppliers, buyers, consumers, and governments all respond to the incentives to create food traceability systems, global standards and new technologies are being developed to support efficient and consistent traceability.

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Evolution of Food TraceabilityCommonly used Food Traceability Standards (by Region)
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) issued a new standard in 2007, known as “ISO 22005:2007”, which establishes international standards for traceability in the food and feed sectors, complementary to ISO 22000:2005, which outlines requirements for food safety management systems, based on Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) principles.
Some governmental regulations are stricter than WTO minimum requirements. The General Food Law contained in Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, as issued by the European Parliament and the Council, mandates the implementation of traceability systems in all food and feed business operators in Article 18, which has been effective since 1 January 2005.
Japanese Agricultural Standards are established by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Japanese law requires a full traceability system for domestic beef. A new bill was recently approved that requires traceability records for rice and rice products, record-keeping will become mandatory in late 2010. For other foods, Article 3 of Japan's Food Sanitation Law requests that each operator keep records to identify all their suppliers and customers—a “one-step-back” and “one-step-forward” record. This request is similar to Article 18 of the European Union's EC Regulation 178/2002. However, in Japan this type of record keeping is only recommended and is not compulsory. Japanese regulations do require labeling of the place of origin for fresh food and minimally processed food, not only at retail level but also at wholesale level. However, while origin labeling itself is required, a record-keeping system to verify origin area by providing documentation such as delivery slips and/or invoices is only recommended, not legally required, per Article 3 of the Food Sanitation Law.

Under the Bioterrorism Act of 2002, local and foreign food businesses that produce food products for sale in the United States must be registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Importers and processors are required to keep records of their immediate suppliers and buyers for 2 years after transaction, and must be able to reproduce these records upon request for inspection by the FDA. In 2007, the FDA issued the Food Protection Plan (FPP), which functions to improve food safety and defense for all domestic and imported products in the United States

In 2003, Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada consulted with federal, provincial and territorial governments, where a consensus “that traceability is necessary in a safe food supply” was established; this was incorporated into the Agricultural Policy Framework (APF), a national agricultural initiative, which expires on March 31st, 2009. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) requires food operators to document the names and addresses of their suppliers and customers, as well as the nature of the product and date of delivery. Operators are also encouraged to keep information on the volume or quantity of a product, the batch number and more detailed descriptions of the product, such as whether it is raw or processed. In the event of a recall, producers must be able to provide this information to the CFIA.
A buyer might also require their supplier to become certified as compliant with an open standard. In this case, suppliers are certified by and then subject to audit by the appropriate certification body. Open standards with traceability requirements include the British Retail Consortium Global Standard, International Food Standard, Safe Quality Food 2000 Code, GlobalGAP General Regulations, and ISO 22000:2005.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/amberwaves/april04/features/FoodTraceability.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/foodlaw/traceability/index_en.htm
http://www.agrosoft.gr/foodchaintraceabilityintro_eng.htm http://www.adbi.org/working-pper/2009/05/28/3012.ict.food.traceability.system/the.evolution.of.traceability.systems/
http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/foodsafety/traceability/cfs07s01.html

Farm Traceability Case Study > Solutions for traceability & cost management PTI

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:22:00 -0700

The Soktas group of companies includes a diverse range of enterprises based in Europe with export to multiple continents. Soktas farming specialises in citrus produce, with multiple areas of land under production. The following is a case study on their implementation of a solution to manage both costs, budgets, and traceability.

Challenges: Reporting on production costs for each orchard was difficult and often no up to date or accurate information was available for production costs defined to accurate areas of land under production. Inventory planning was time consuming and inaccurate, resulting in potential losses due to materials not being available or poorly substituted. Inventory usage defined to areas of land was inaccurate and nonexistent at times.

Requirements: Implement solution to accurately capture location of inventory consumption (to cost centre), inventory planning, farming task recording.

Solution Implemented:ProducePak Farm ERP, Farm PDA Mobile Solution

Improved cash flow,
accurate farm cost reporting,
enhanced inventory planning.

Main Benefits:
Production Cost Reporting: The Farm PDA mobile solution allows staff to capture the farming tasks performed on-site at multiple farms during the normal working process. This information is synchronised with ProducePak daily to collect new tasks and register completed tasks, allowing management instant cost reporting at any time. Farm managers are also now able to easily identify any potential problems with employee task performance.

Inventory Planning: The ProducePak Farm ERP solution provides the ability to predict required quantities of inventory and labour required during the farming process. Planning is performed by comparing a monthly materials analysis report to ensure just in time inventory delivery from suppliers and arrange labour resources.

Summary: Soktas obtained significant savings from improved response time for employee tasks. Inventory planning improved inventory availability and freed up cash flow due to better planning. Management now has access to new reporting tools allowing accurate analysis of costs for each orchard; this information is now used to make informed marketing decisions for sales of produce.

Source: www.ProducePak.com

Automating food and produce labeling for traceability PTI

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:21:00 -0700

Labeling has never been more complex and time consuming. With European, North American, and other Western countries rapidly increasing their labeling requirements, its hard to find a palatable middle ground that doesn’t increase labeling costs, or cause disruptions to the production or manufacturing lines.

Recently we came across a few solutions that provide flexible labeling solutions, and at the same time; are integrated into the business process. The integrated labeling solutions provide the ability to perform normal manufacturing or packing processes, without the hassle of changing the process or reducing its efficiency for the purpose of labeling.

Many packers and food manufacturers in North America are currently grappling with the Produce Traceability Initiative , this initiative is an attempt to enforce the most basic of labeling standards onto the North American food manufacturers and packhouses. There are many solutions that can meet the requirements of the PTI and have existed for many years; and have been used by many European and Western countries for some time. Some examples are the ProducePak Farm/Packhouse/Food Manufacturing suites of solutions, or the QTrace free online traceability service.

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The benefits of using these tools for packers and food manufacturers vary wildly based on the solution chosen. When looking for a labeling solution you should consider if the solution:
• Supports multiple barcode standards ( PTI is not the only standard to consider, there are many other more advanced standards for traceability & labeling including BRC, GlobalGap and others)
• Provides the ability to tailor or create new labels
• Will the solution vendor create or tailor new labels for you? If so, what is the cost of this service
• Integrate with other packages? After all, you don’t want to have to enter data twice into different solutions to achieve recording and labeling solutions
• Integrate with online traceability services? For example, some labeling services can not only print labels, but also send your chosen traceability information to online servers that can share the information with consumers and or retailers.

Source:
www.pmac.ca
www.ProduceTraceability.org
www.QTrace.com
www.ProducePak.com
www.FarmSoft.com

mySolutions brings Farm & Packhouse systems to South Africa PTI

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:19:00 -0700

mySolutions, a leading South African solutions integrator, and broad spectrum information technology provider has ehnaced their portfolio of solutions once again. mySolutions has become the exclusive South African partner for the suite of ProducePak Solutions.

This unique ERP system comprises five modules pertaining to the farming and pack house industry, namely: Farming Management System, Packhouse Management System, Food Manufacturing Management System, Quality Management System and Poultry Management System.

The concept for ProducePak originally developed from the need for an ERP system, which was conducive not only to the way that pack houses and farmers conduct their business operations, but also to enable them meet the stringent international standards and improve farming and pack house management in terms of business processes.

ProducePak removes the constant challenges faced by pack houses and farmers, daily scheduling and follow-ups, repetitive asset allocation etc, and allows for streamlined business operations.

The system allows for a creation of tasks, traceability of stock and inventory, management of budgets, packing processes, etc. The Business Intelligence Module is a tool designed for planning and taking strategic decisions. Among its various functions, it allocates costs and quantities to relevant specific tasks resulting in bottom-line savings. The modern-day farmer is now in a position to run his farm as a cost-efficient enterprise and compete with large international corporations.

ProducePak was originally developed in Australia for the local market and subsequently adapted for the European market from which it has grown into a global product. It has since expanded into USA, Canada, Kenya, Egypt, Sweden, Morocco, to name but a few countries, and is now also available in South Africa.

As a niche product, its use lies in areas where pack houses and farms are required to conform to standards and procedures of the highest level, but do not yet have the infrastructure to support some of the larger ERP systems. With thousands of pack houses and farms using the product worldwide, ProducePak has the unique ability to identify itself with local farmers and is quickly integrated into the daily planning and work processes needed to run an efficient farm and pack house enterprise.

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It can be integrated with popular accounting software. ProducePak offers a powerful support system, as much time is spent in consultation with the farmer or pack house owner to fully understand the business and personal requirements. This information is then applied to set up an environment to accommodate the specific needs and, in this way, provide a truly unique and custom-based solution to each individual farm or pack house.

ProducePak has the power to provide pack houses and farms with a complete overview, traceability and integration of workflows and processes resulting in a lean and economically efficient pack house and profit maximisation.

For more details please see:
mySolutions Home Page - South Africa - Packhouse/Farm Software
mySolutions Press Release

Sharing traceability information with consumers & retailers online PTI

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:18:00 -0700

Sharing traceability details with consumers or retailers (or both) is a tricky situation. The questions are:
• Should I share anything?
• What do I share?
• Can I control who sees the information?
• How can I do this affordably and practically?

According to research into traceability and consumer satisfaction, the average consumer is 80% more likely to purchase a food product made by a company that shares this information with the consumer (as opposed to a manufacturer that does not). Retailers are also more likely to purchase food products from companies that can provide instant traceability details. Further research shows that less than 5% of consumers will ever use such a service, but they appreciate (or require where possible) its availability.

Why would you share traceability details?
• Research shows over 80% of consumers prefer to purchase a product with openly available traceability (where the alternate product is identical in specification).
• Communicate preferred information about the product including farm of origin, manufacturing and growing practices, and proof points such as claims of "locally grown" or "Organic" etc.
• Comply with dozens of traceability and quality standards (see Standards Compliance below)
• Labeling using the QTrace Code can be used with Item, carton, batch, and pallet level identification
• Capture new levels of feedback from consumers. Currently many manufacturers receive little feedback from consumers due to the Retailer being between the two parties. Some solutions encourage consumers to comment on their product experience, giving the manufacturer a new product improvement tool.
• Rapidly implement traceability requirements regardless of business size
• Integrate QTrace into existing software solutions, or choose from solutions already integrated
• Create brand loyalty with consumers and retailers by providing a high level of transparency

How to share traceability details online:

1. Do it in-house:
To do this, you need to create an online database that can be either manually or automatically fed with details of each batch you are manufacturing. This will allow the traceability details you build into the system to be share online when the consumer or retailer enters a batch or traceability code online. Drawbacks with this method is that you need to spend potentially tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars (depending on your required scope) to achieve this outcome, and the continual cost of technology services can be prohibative for companies that do not have very large information technology budgets.

2. Use an Online Traceability Service
There are various online traceability services that allow you to go online and enter the details of each batch of product manufactured, you can then label your product with the batch numbers and consumers and or retailers are able to access your traceability information down to the individual batch or unit. Be careful with which solution you choose, as it is very important that you have the following options or facilities:
• To be able to choose exactly which details you share with your consumer/retailer
• The solution provider is secure, established and has some kind of industry support from experts, vendors, consumers, retailers, or technology professionals specializing in traceability.
• Make sure you can administer your own information at any time. This also means ensuring the solution provider has a policy of not providing information to other parties unless you authorize it to be done.
• Some providers have special features that allow your retailers to place purchase orders online, and even allow consumers or retailers (at your discretion) to check traceability details via a mobile device; such as SMS’ing the traceability code to a phone number and receiving the traceability details via SMS. An example of a traceability solution provider that has extensive additional features is the QTrace service (see http://www.QTrace.com for details)
• Choose a solution that can integrate into an existing solution, for example the ProducePak suite of food manufacturing, farm management, and packhouse management solutions automatically send traceability details to online traceability solutions; making the solution truly seamless and effortless (see http://www.ProducePak.com for details)
• Choose a solution that allows consumers and or retailers to enter comments or feedbacks that relate back to a specific product batch or traceability code.

Source:
www.QTrace.com
www.FarmSoft.com
www.ProducePak.com
www.totalpak.net

Case Study > Increase traceability and quality control qickly and easily

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:17:00 -0700

Business HillSide Gardens Ltd
Country Canada
Business Type Farming, Packer, Marketer

Business Profile: HillSide Gardens has grown from a small family operation to large producer, packer, and exporter of quality produce to multiple regions. HillSide boasts it own farming operations producing multiple fruit and vegetable varieties, packs internally produced produce, packs for multiple regional growers, and provides produce marketing services in Canada and the United States. HillSide deals with some long life produce which is stored in state of the art facilities for months, and distributed during the non production seasons. HillSide prides its operations on being innovative with business operations, and maintaining the highest possible standards for product quality.

Challenges: Implement higher traceability standards without increasing costs; to cater for increasing requirements from clients and national regulation. Manage long term storage of perishable product inventory, and implement QC.

Requirements: Traceability improvements for export, packhouse analysis and reporting, improve cost analysis of packing costs, manage multiple growers product through packing, storage, and distribution processes, implement QC

Solution: ProducePak Packhouse Management & Mobile PDA, Mobile Quality Control

"ProducePak has provided us with the seamless quality control & traceability our operation was looking for. Our customers are satisfied and confident with ProducePak traceability, and we are saving money using the excellent business analysis tools." Ron Gleason, CEO of HILL SIDE GARDENS, Canada

Main Benefits from ProducePak Packhouse :

Packhouse Traceability & QC: Implementing high levels of traceability & Quality Control throughout the entire packhouse operation has been made easy for HillSide with ProducePak’s management of produce from the moment it arrives to instant reporting on traceability after dispatch and sales. QC tests are defined for standard operations, as well as templates based on specific customer requirements. Staff performance versus QC can be analysed easily.

Cost Control & Reporting: Packing costs can now be accurately (and quickly) for produce packed based on not only grower (supplier) but also on different batches, varieties, and packing periods. Cost reporting and pack-out rates are rapidly reportable; this information makes determining purchase prices of produce more accurate and profitable as growers are paid on the merit their respective pack-out rates.

Inventory: HillSide inventory is now accurately managed for the extended life of the produce, with FIFO (First In-First Out) management being provided by ProducePak. This new facility gives reduced waste and shrinkage for the storage and dispatch operations.

"We have improved our inventory control because we now have real time data on what’s happening in the field with our PDAs. This helps to reduce spoilage and waste." Ron Gleason, CEO of HILL SIDE GARDENS, Canada

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Summary: HillSide has significantly improved traceability levels, reduced waste, increased accuracy of inventory, increased accuracy of raw produce purchases, made better sales decisions based on the cost of packing each specific type of traded unit (finished product).

For further information , please see Farm Software , Traceability Solutions , Quality Systems , Packhouse Software , Farm Traceability , Farm ERP , Packhouse Management Software , Farm To Fork

Farm Traceability Solutions in Developing Countires / Emerging Markets

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:16:00 -0700

This document has been provided specifically to answer questions asked by companies in Developing Regions prior to implementation of a Traceability Solution. The Traceability Team is in the process of reviewing various Farm Traceability Solutions. The review below is just the beginning of the reviews we will conduct this year.

Product Reviewed: ProducePak Farm ERP

Why ProducePak?ProducePak has a long history of implementing projects in regions across both developed and developing regions. In particular, because this document concentrates on emerging markets, developing regions include Kenya, South Africa, Guatemala, and Egypt. New projects in 2010 include Ghana, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria.

ProducePak consultants have great experience with projects in developing regions making difficult projects successful ones.

The ProducePak solution helps to enforce international standards very quickly where the users of the system have little or no experience with computers or implementing food production, safety, and best practices in horticulture businesses.

In many cases, the ProducePak solution has been very successful during implementation where the users being trained have no experience at all with computers. A core feature of ProducePak is that the system “guides” the user through the best practice processes for safe and efficient food production.

ProducePak expert consultants provide ongoing support to clients in the form of email, phone, remote, and onsite training services; and also upgrades to the software every three months which will include new features, reports, and industry facilities to ensure international standards are always supported by ProducePak.

The on-site training process provides an expert ProducePak consultant that will manage the entire installation, configuration, deployment, and training for the project. This ensures a high degree of success for the project, and provides the best possible results and speed for the project.

Case Studies
To review case studies from developing regions using ProducePak, use this link http://www.producepak.com/pdf2/producepak-case-study-egypt.pdf
To review case studies from developed regions using ProducePak, click on this link http://www.producepak.com/pdf2/producepak-case-study.pdf

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Benefits from ProducePak Farm ERPThe following is a list of benefits from ProducePak Farm ERP systems.

• Improved management of production activity monitoring and budgeting
• Be alerted to deviations in budgets immediately
• Better planning of resources used in the production process results in higher cash flow utilisation and profit enhancement
• Automatic traceability systems reduce paperwork and staff time spent documenting chemical and spray application activities
• Inventory management reduces shrinkage and allows easy stock-taking; improving cash flow utilisation by maximising usage of on hand resources
• Compliance for; and Audits of HACCP, EurepGAP, GlobalGAP, ISO and other standards become easier and quicker by allowing auditors access to traceability systems
• For large businesses, central production management can easily monitor multiple farm sites from once central location; saving time, and improving management response to any issues in the production process
• Pre/Post Harvest Interval (PHI), Withholding Period management stops staff from harvesting product that is still within a holding period after the application of spray chemicals; potentially reducing the possibility of losses due to a recall or rejection of produce due to chemical residue issues

Other Benefits from ProducePak Farm ERP
• Easy recording of farm activities
• Easily assess the status of all outstanding farm activities from one central location
• Take rapid corrective action where tasks are missed or performed incorrectly
• Increased accuracy of traceability
• Capture HACCP, EurepGAP, GlobalGAP, ISO x, BCA, FarmCare information
• Increased control over materials used during production processes results in improved cash flow
• Automatic enforcement of PHI & withholding periods
• Increased control over inventory allows the business to reduce inventory waste and misappropriation; and improves profitability
• Enhanced inventory control allows the business to better manage the quantity of materials on hand, resulting in improved cash flow
• Rapid access to levels of production inventory on hand at any time; at each site and storage location
• Easy re-ordering of inventory
• Store managers are alerted when items need re-ordering
• When important staff take holidays or need to be replaced, their knowledge of normal operations is retained in ProducePak and can easily be accessed by management and new staff.
• Increase profitability by standardising production practices across the entire business
• Stops production staff from forgetting important tasks, resulting in increased yield and profitability
• Ensures correct quantities and methods are enforced, increasing business profit
• Allows the development and analysis of new production methodologies to improve production efficiency
• Rapidly Identify production mistakes and anomalies for production activities, allowing management to take corrective action; resulting in improved yield and profitability
• Become a ‘lean manufacturer’ by arranging materials and labour resources to be delivered Just In Time, maximising business cash flow
• Detect budget over/under runs immediately and take corrective action, resulting in improved cost control and profitability
• Make financial decisions and improve financial planning based on full budgeting information being available before each season starts
• Remove ‘nasty cash flow’ surprises that may result from a lack of budget planning and monitoring
• Compare profitability of selected production methodologies to choose new production methods; resulting in increased business profitability
• Comprehensive cost control avoids budget blow outs and allows management to be aware of any problems immediately

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Features of Farm ERP
Whilst there are hundreds of features in the Farm ERP solution, the following summarises the main features. Full details of the systems features can be downloaded from these links:
• Farm ERP System Specifications http://www.producepak.com/pdf2/ProducePakFARMMANAGEMENT.pdf
• Farm ERP System Demonstration http://www.producepak.com/pdf2/FarmERPSummaryProducePakSolutions.zip
• Farm ERP Mobile Solution Option http://www.producepak.com/pdf2/ProducePakFARMpda.pdf

Farm ERP Features • Comprehensive production task management for ALL production activities including Spray, Timesheets, Irrigation, Machinery Plant & Equipment Maintenance, Block Inputs, Planting, Harvesting, and more…
• Prepare production budgets prior to the start of each seasons growing, to improve materials, labour, and cash flow planning
• Monitor budgets on a daily basis to identify budget overruns and take corrective action
• Profit reporting down to individual areas of land at any time during and after the production process
• Automatically generate staff tasks and instructions to improve staff management
• Comprehensive activity monitoring systems to identify mistakes and deviations during the production process; allowing management to make corrective actions before incorrect practices or tasks cost produce quality/yield/profit.
• Automatic traceability of materials and labour used in production; instant recall from block, crop, and material inputs
• Comprehensive inventory management to improve resource utilisation and reduce waste includes traceability for inventory batches and integrates automatically with recall and traceability systems. Purchase Order generation, stock takes for multiple sites and depots,
• Mobile Farm Software allows staff to synchronise tasks to the PDA, record tasks and actual material consumption in the field, and then synchronise data with the ProducePak server back in the office; allows central monitoring of all staff activities at all times
• Integrate with Finance Package and Payroll
• Record Spray, Irrigation, Water, Planting, Block Inputs, Harvest, and virtually any task that is performed during production (contractors, soil tests, and more..)
• Plan tasks in advance or enter after they have been performed
• Costs are automatically allocated to each Block/Crop/Plot and area
• Multi-site enabled
• Recording of both Global and Site based overheads
• Automatically maintain traceability of materials used during production & automatic inventory allocation
• Generate staff/team instruction sheets
• View alerts for BHI / withholding periods etc
• Perform production cost analysis for each block
• Maintain labour traceability for all production tasks
• Visual display allows annual, monthly, weekly and daily views of production tasks filtered by selected Farm Site, or , Block, or Crop.
• Create Purchase Orders to acquire inventory
• Receive Inventory functions
• Perform multi-site stock takes, and or multi-depot stock takes
• Authorise the use of inventory from various storage depots
• Unlimited storage depots, at unlimited sites
• Batch number traceability
• Batch number recall processes
• Easy ‘pending delivery’ analysis
• Inventory “Check Out” and “Check In” logging to specific tasks, improves accountability and allows flexible control of inventory
• Easy logging of “evidence of consumption” recording for materials accountability
• Balances of inventory taken by each employee maintains accountability for task based farming activities
• configure the businesses standard production methods specify duration of tasks, materials used, labour used, equipment used
• trail, analyse and compare new production methods
• automatic scheduling of production tasks for each block for the entire season
• Monitor activities during production to compare ‘estimated’ with ‘actual’
• generate entire budgets for each block, before production commences
• trial different production methodologies to fine tune budget and cash flow requirements
• monitor ‘estimated’ and ‘actual’ budget during the production season
• Budgets by: Detail, Item, Category Summary, and Date Range
• Production Costs Reporting
• Production Profit Reporting

For further details on Traceability , Packing Software, Farm Software, Farm ERP, and Food Manufacturing please see:
Farm Packhouse . Farm ERP Farm Management Software Farm Packhouse Case Study Farm ERP ProducePakBIM Traceability Portal CCP Packhouse Software Crop Management Software Crop Traceability Farm Systems Food Traceability News Packing Solutions Farming Software Packhouse Management Farm ERP QTrace

Packhouse Traceability in Emerging Regions / Developing Countries PTI

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:14:00 -0700

This document has been provided specifically to answer questions asked by companies in Developing Regions prior to implementation of a Traceability Solution in the Packhouse.

Why ProducePak?
ProducePak has a long history of implementing projects in regions across both developed and developing regions. In particular, developing regions include Kenya, South Africa, Guatemala, and Egypt. New projects in 2010 include Ghana, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria.

ProducePak consultants have great experience with projects in developing regions making difficult projects successful ones.

The ProducePak solution helps to enforce international standards very quickly where the users of the system have little or no experience with computers or implementing food production, safety, and best practices in horticulture businesses.

In many cases, the ProducePak solution has been very successful during implementation where the users being trained have no experience at all with computers. A core feature of ProducePak is that the system “guides” the user through the best practice processes for safe and efficient food production.

ProducePak expert consultants provide ongoing support to clients in the form of email, phone, remote, and onsite training services; and also upgrades to the software every three months which will include new features, reports, and industry facilities to ensure international standards are always supported by ProducePak.

The on-site training process provides an expert ProducePak consultant that will manage the entire installation, configuration, deployment, and training for the project. This ensures a high degree of success for the project, and provides the best possible results and speed for the project.

Case Studies
To review case studies from developing regions using ProducePak, use this link http://www.producepak.com/pdf2/producepak-case-study-egypt.pdf
To review case studies from developed regions using ProducePak, click on this link http://www.producepak.com/pdf2/producepak-case-study.pdf

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Benefits from ProducePak Packhouse
The following is a list of benefits from ProducePak Packhouse systems.

General Benefits Include:
• improved profit in the packing process
• improve staff efficiency by easily and quickly implementing best practices
• reduce duplication & redundancy
• decrease management response time
• improve reporting, analysis, and business monitoring
• instant cost reporting, live at any time!
• streamline & automatically manage processes
• enforce operational standards
• create full traceability of all produce handling in all business areas
• quality improvements
• easy audits and traceability management
• increased staff performance via higher levels of accountability and bonus/incentive schemes
• share and collect information from customers online, reducing administration costs
• Increased accuracy of produce handling reduces waste
• Batch based packing process allows easy traceability of all product from either end of the supply chain
• Paperwork and identification labels can be automatically generated at the point of produce deliver, saving time and administration managing this process
• Increase Packhouse efficiency by automatically maintaining HACCP, EurepGAP, GlobalGAP, ISO x, BCA, and other standards during the packing process

Other Benefits Include:
• Increased accuracy of produce handling reduces waste
• Batch based packing process allows easy traceability of all product from either end of the supply chain
• Paperwork and identification labels can be automatically generated at the point of produce deliver, saving time and administration managing this process
• Increase Packhouse efficiency by automatically maintaining HACCP, EurepGAP, GlobalGAP, ISO x, BCA, and other standards during the packing process
• Reduced waste of produce inventory
• Increase staff accountability and monitoring
• Bonuses and incentive schemes motivate staff performance
• Easy traceability management
• Reduction in administration errors via improved handling processes of produce
• Increase customer satisfaction via orders being delivered correctly, and on time
• Enhance communication between marketing and Packhouse management
• Reduce administration time spent making reports for packing requirements
• Effortless traceability of all product palletised
• Easy labelling of product, including origin, branding, packer details and more….
• Reduce waste by accurately tracking stock and finished product
• Traceability accuracy is enforced; providing a higher level of traceability and easy fetching of traceability information
• Labelling and identification can be tailored to meet Packhouse (or customer) requirements
• Reduce pallet handling errors by using bar-code identification systems
• Rapidly know each clients purchasing trends to determine the best market for produce
• Reduce paperwork and manual data entry during consignment, and increase accuracy
• Increase customer satisfaction via orders being delivered correctly, and on time
• Reduce inventory waste/shrinkage by increasing control and accountability over inventory consumption
• Easily ensure there is always the correct quantity of inventory on hand to perform required packing processes; by analysing and receiving alerts from inventory balances
• Enhanced inventory control allows the business to better manage the quantity of materials on hand, resulting in improved cash flow
• Increase staff accountability and monitoring of inventory consumption
• The Mobile Packhouse software controls staff tasks such as Dispatch by instructing staff on where to find stock to fill orders. Smart features like this are also used in the Stock Assignment processes
• Staff spend less time writing information onto forms, labels, and other documentation, and more time doing their critical tasks
• ProducePak Mobile Stock Control allows your staff to perform data entry from anywhere on your site, making recording of stock, pallets, quality assurance, and pallet dispatch convenient and fast from anywhere at your packing facility.
• By using Mobile Stock Control staff are encouraged to record stock and pallet information more accurately. The Mobile Stock Control module removes the necessity of staff requiring a PC to enter data and increases the speed and ease which information can be recorded. Mobile Barcoding is a specialised mobile solutions combining wireless networking, PDA, and barcode scanning technologies.
• Easily enforce consistent Quality Control tests for each product/traded unit/grade between all Quality Control officers
• Enforce customer Quality Control tests
• Increase staff performance by rapid identification of common mistakes or quality breaches
• Save on packing costs by identifying incorrectly packaged/processed product immediately and take corrective action
• Adjust packing charges by monitoring the quality performance of growers/suppliers
• Justify raw produce purchase price adjustments to growers/suppliers by providing growers/suppliers with evidence of the quality of produce delivered to the Packhouse
• All quality control activities become more accountable by providing employees instant feedback on quality issues
• Advanced reporting is available which can be used to benchmark multiple departments, teams, or multiple companies
• For large organisations, Quality Control testing can be easily standardised over multiple companies or departments from one convenient location; enforcing consistent quality control processes throughout the organisation
• Centralise QC administration, making Quality Control over multiple organisations and departments easy

Features of Packhouse ERP
Whilst there are hundreds of features in the Packhouse solution, the following summarises the main features. Full details of the systems features can be downloaded from these links:
• Packhouse System Specifications http://www.producepak.com/pdf2/ProducePakPACKHOUSE.pdf
• Packhouse System Demonstration http://www.producepak.com/pdf2/PackhouseSummaryProducePakSolutions.zip
• Packhouse Mobile Solution Option http://www.producepak.com/pdf2/ProducePakPackhousePDA.pdf

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Features Summary
• Full Traceability Management
• Incoming produce management
• Full inventory/stock management
• Comprehensive pallet management with PDA and barcode enabled identification
• Packhouse labour management
• Batch based packing process management
• Packaging materials management
• Operational cost monitoring and reporting
• Employee monitoring and analysis
• Purchase Order & Sales Order management
• Sales, Consignment, and dispatch management
• “Grower Returns” management for co-operatives
• Extensive reporting & analysis facilities
• Produce maturity and ripening management
• Web enabled Customer Care Portal
• Integration with financial and general ledger packages
• Integration with payroll packages
• Integration with ProducePak Farm ERP
• Scan stock into batches
• record bin numbers and picker numbers for incoming stock
• move stock
• transfer stock off-site, and receive stock from off-site
• move pallets
• assign stock to batches
• perform pre-pack Quality Assurance and Quality Control
• perform post-pack Quality Assurance on cartons/packed bins
• dispatch finished pallets to customers
• use theoretically unlimited number of PDA’s
• stock-take pallets that need to be sent to customers
• view pallets on Dispatch Dockets
• dispatch management
• stock management
• use a PDA to manage stock stored at remote sites (eg: distribution warehouses in other countries)
• use PDA to count packed items for staff performance analysis (or use the Payroll Assistant module to pay packers based on the number of cartons they pack)
• Create Purchase Orders to acquire inventory
• Receive Inventory functions
• Perform multi-site stock takes, and or multi-depot stock takes
• Authorise the use of inventory from various storage depots
• Unlimited storage depots, at unlimited sites
• Batch & Lot number traceability
• Batch & Lot number recall processes
• Easy ‘pending delivery’ analysis

Case Study > Meet retail demand for strict and instant traceability and QC

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:26:00 -0700

Business BrennB Farms
Country Canada
Business Type Food Processing, Packhouse, Farm

Business Profile: BrennB has evolved from farming operations which has grown into packing, and value adding with food manufacturing processes the service industries. BrennB participates in many traceability pioneering programs, and has a reputation for philanthropy and community support. Various government case studies and video documentaries have been produced based on the activities of BrennB.

Challenges: Increasing demands from customers has created the need for higher levels of traceability at all levels of the packing and processing operations; implementing the new levels of traceability and QC without having to replace staff or increase operational costs is a major requirement.

Requirements: Meet ever increasing demands from customers for high traceability, implement QC, minimise compliance costs

Solution Chosen: ProducePak Packhouse ERP

"Brenn-B Farms purchased ProducePak for the ability to meet the retail demand of strict and Instant traceability & quality protocols, but in the process realized impressive benefits from solid packhouse and farm management reporting. Equally as impressive as the software, their talented support team has customer service that is distinguished and extremely professional.” Shawn Brenn, OPERATIONS MANAGER of BRENN-B FARMS, Canada

Main Benefits from ProducePak Packhouse ERP :

Quality Control: ProducePak has provided BrennB with a platform for Quality Control tests; these tests are configurable for both domestic and international quality control requirements and also special customer requirements.

Traceability: Instant traceability for all product produced (or handled) by BrennB is provided by ProducePak Packhouse ERP. Based on a simple Batch Number which is on all Traded Units (Final Products) that leave BrennB premises; BrennB now has instant recall of all traceability information such as: raw produce details, supplier (grower), origin of produce (land area, crop codes, plot codes, blocks etc), packaging materials traceability, transport companies, storage history of raw produce, and details of staff that packed the product.

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Profit Enhancement: New facilities for business wide analysis and reporting has given BrennB enhanced profit from speeding up management response time, increased accuracy of sales decisions, and enhanced customer service through increased levels of understanding of customer purchasing trends.

Summary: BrennB has implemented QC and met strict traceability requirements with ease, whilst achieving operational savings and profit enhancement.

For further information , please see www.FarmSoft.com , www.PackhouseSoftware.org , www.farm-software.net , www.FarmPlanning.org , www.farmsystems.org , www.ProducePak.com , www.ANPTechnology.com , www.mytoowoomba.com

Case Study > Packhouse computerisation brings great savings, improvements in accuracy and easy enforcement of EU quality & traceability

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:26:00 -0700

Business Zein El Din International
Country Egypt
Business Type Farming, Packing

Business Profile: Zein El Din is a long established producer, packer, and exporter of fruit and vegetables to Europe and Middle East regions. Zein El Din is a family established enterprise which produces a range of fruit and vegetable with a production schedule lasting almost all year round.

Challenges: Meet new traceability requirements for export to EU region. Enforce production staff to maintain higher levels of traceability for chemical applications to produce during spray tasks. Modernise packhouse operations which were paper based, and suffered from inaccuracies for inventory control, First In First Out (FIFO) management of produce, dispatch response time and accuracy was unacceptable, and difficulties knowing what produce is available for sale were experienced.

Requirements: Computerise packhouse operations for higher traceability and labour analysis, enforce traceability on farms, increase accuracy and handling of produce in packhouse to enhance quality and profit.

Solution Implemented:ProducePak Packhouse , ProducePak Farm ERP

Packhouse computerisation brings great savings, improvements in accuracy and easy enforcement of EU quality & traceability

Main Benefits:

Packhouse Computerisation: Automation of the packhouse has proved drastic increases in traceability, accountability, and reporting. Management now has access to hundreds of pack-house reports which are used to gauge produce quality, staff performance, and packhouse costs. Labour use in the packhouse is now more efficient and information recording and reporting is significantly more accurate for the packhouse. Savings due to FIFO management of inventory (both raw and processed) has been achieved. Maintaining standards for exporting fruit and vegetables to EU and UK regions has been easily implemented and supported.

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Management of Farming Activities: Farming activities now have a very high level of traceability for all chemical (and other inputs) applied to each area of land under production.

Summary: The solution has enforced EU traceability standards, savings from reduced waste of raw produce due to mishandling, greatly improved accuracy of packhouse and farming reporting, improved farm traceability for chemical applications, new reporting and analysis tools for management, reduced costs preparing reports manually.

For further information , please see www.FarmSoft.com , www.PackhouseSoftware.org , www.farm-software.net , www.FarmPlanning.org , www.farmsystems.org , www.ProducePak.com , www.ANPTechnology.com , www.mytoowoomba.com

Farm Software PTI > Farm responds to questions about implementing Farm ERP Solution

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:13:00 -0700

The following responses were given by a Farm when asked about each area of the business and how their recently implemented software solution has helped them to implement better management systems.

The "before" situation is in bold and the "after" situation is in italic.

Budgeting and projections was difficult or non existent.
Budgets can be prepared for each area of land using a selected variety and “what if” analysis provides management with the ability to choose production plans.

Resource (materials and labour) was difficult to project. We were using spreadsheets to do this.
ProducePak provides comprehensive resource projection as part of the Budgeting module. Both labour and materials can be accurarately predicted down to the individual product.

Budget monitoring was difficult and not real time due to the time it took to enter information onto spreadsheets and financial package.
ProducePak Budgeting module provides real-time, daily budget monitoring. Budgets can be broken down to specific areas of land or monitored over a produce type, variety, farm, block, or site.

Planning staff activities was time consuming and often inaccurate.
Using the Farm Diary, we can now plan staff tasks in advance, including Planting, Spray, Harvest, Irrigation, Inputs, and all other tasks. Staff can be given the tasks on daily printed worksheets or on a PDA on which they record any deviations from the plan.

Monitoring & Accuracy of farming tasks was inaccurate and often recorded too late or incorrectly, or goes unknown until its too late to make a decision.
Staff now record their tasks on printed timesheets or PDA. This information is synchronised with ProducePak and gives management instant alerts to any potential problems in the farming process. Recording of quantities of batch numbers and quantities of materials used (including labour) during tasks is now much more accurate and recorded quickly or in real time.

Accuracy of inventory and its accountability was low. Often we had different levels of inventory than expected, and often inventory would go missing with no accountability.
Staff now record the batches of inventory used, and quantities directly into ProducePak via PDA (or worksheet). From most of our warehouses our staff have to “check out” inventory, so we know who used which resource and if they are expected to return any the warehouse manager is alerted. We have now reduced inventory shrinkage and loss, reducing our costs.

Often we would need a resource such as a chemical or fertilizer and it would not be available.
We now set minimum levels inventory items and the warehouse manager is alerted when it needs ordering.

Traceability of material inputs to a crop was very difficult. To perform a recall of a crop based on a batch number or invoice number of a contaminated input would require us to search potentially hundreds (or thousands) of worksheets to identify application areas.
When staff perform their tasks now, they record batch details of any materials into the task, with just a few clicks we can find out where a resource was used, and the details of any produce that was harvested from the production areas.

Training staff compliance for our standards was time consuming and had to be repeated over and over again (we use BRC and GlobalGAP on the farms)
Processes in ProducePak enforce the processes for GlobalGAP and BRC (and others); meaning we don’t really need to train the staff on these points because they are being forced to comply.

Farm managers often had difficulty knowing the progress of each team; resulting in missed opportunities to take corrective actions. Often farm managers would spend a lot of their time on the phone trying to figure out what the status of work is.
ProducePak centralises all farm task information allowing for a central monitoring system where each farm manager can instantly see the progress of staff and tasks and make immediate corrections or adjustments where necessary.

PHI intervals would sometimes be missed by farm managers, resulting in potential breach of PHI compliance.
ProducePak now graphically shows farm managers the PHI periods and doesn’t allow re-entry or Harvesting where there is a PHI constraint. It is now virtually impossible for a PHI breach to occur.

Purchase Orders for materials were sometimes informal and not properly approved, and often multiple managers would over order the same materials.
We now have centralised PO management, and stopped multiple staff from over ordering. All Purchase Orders are now approved by management, and exported or financial package.

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Stock takes on materials (inventory) would not be performed often enough due to the difficulty in performing them. Often we didn’t really know what our “estimated quantity” of materials was.
We can now perform stock takes by site, depot, or inventory category. The PDA can be used to perform stock takes or we can print stock take sheets and enter the “actual” values after performing the stock take.

Staff retention has always been an issue on our farms. Each time a staff member left, we would have trouble training a replacement.
ProducePak now gives the staff their work processes and instructions. When we have a new staff member, we simply show them how to use the small part of ProducePak that applies to their tasks, and ProducePak guides them through their work and alerts for any mistakes.

Often we would have nasty cash flow surprises where we had miscalculated the quantity of materials or used more materials during production due to environmental or pest reasons.
ProducePak gives us daily reports on our use of individual materials that is over the predicted (budgeted) amount. The cash difference can be seen quickly and appropriate action can be taken.

Implementing best practices was often time consuming and these practices were often forgotten by our staff if we didn’t continually harass them into using the methods.
The Farm solution guides staff through their tasks and requires them to ‘tick off’ each process or duty as it is being done. This forces the staff to do things the way we want them done, and alerts us if they try to perform tasks incorrectly.

Case Study > Reduce farm costs & increase profits

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:25:00 -0700
Business: Torps Gard Farming Company
Country: Sweden
Business Type: Farming & Poultry

Farm Profile: Torps Gard has several decades in the farming industry, with Poultry being a recent addition to the traditional crop farming activities. Torps Gard is an environmentally friendly producer using green energy and precision farming across the operation. Torps Gard produces fresh produce meeting European (EU) standards.

Challenges:
Crop Farming: the farming operations were using paper and MS Excel based traceability which produced challenges during audits, duplication of data, and inaccuracy. Farming processes were difficult to budget for and up to date, real time reporting on production costs were unavailable or difficult to produce.
Poultry: A rapid production process for hundreds of thousands of animals, involving continual inputs, close monitoring of waste, and precarious balances between profit and loss during the production process. Task management and ensuring quality of yield was a major challenge.

Requirements: Increased farming monitoring and control to reduce waste, staff control to increase response time and product quality, staff management to reduce costs.

“Our business has increased food safety and quality management systems as a result of implementing ProducePak. The solution has allowed our business to improve operational efficiency and reduce operating costs through the softwares business management features; whilst ensuring our traceability and customer confidence in our product … “ Olof Oscarsson, PRESIDENT, TORPS GARD, Sweden

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Solution Chosen: ProducePak Farm ERP

Main Benefits from ProducePak Farm ERP:
Farm Activity Management: Farm Activities are managed and planned, providing standardised farming practices, with rapid management response to any potential issues during farming. Operational costs are now reduced due to automatic task scheduling and efficient use of labour resulting savings on labour costs. Waste created (due to losses of product or product quality) during the farming process has been reduced due to stricter employee activity control, resulting in further savings for the Torps Gard farming company.

Cost Control & Reporting: Instant cost reporting is now available for each farming area (or poultry house), providing management with up to date decision making information used in marketing, production management, and cash flow control.

Traceability: Farm inputs are now monitored automatically by ProducePak Farm ERP, creating an instant audit trail and traceability reporting conforming to international food safety standards, ensuring the security of the businesses quality certifications and customer base & confidence.

Summary: Torps Gard has increased profit and quality during its farming operations, with additional non tangible benefits including reduced management response time. Torps Gard clients are impressed and reassured with the new solutions in place; resulting in higher customer confidence and retention.

For further information on farm ERP solutions, please see www.FarmSoft.com , www.PackhouseSoftware.org , www.farm-software.net , www.FarmPlanning.org , www.farmsystems.org , www.ProducePak.com , www.ANPTechnology.com , www.mytoowoomba.com

Packhouse Software PTI > A packhouse manager responds to before and after questions after implementing packhouse traceability

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:10:00 -0700

The following responses were given by a Farm when asked about each area of the business and how their recently implemented software solution has helped them to implement better management systems.

Before: Packing costs for each batch were often unknown. We pack for our own farm and other farmers, so we need to know how much it was costing for each farmer.
After: Using ProducePak Packhouse we can now see the packing costs of each batch, including labour and materials seperately. We now use this information to determine the price we will pay the farmer for their goods if the produce was not from one of our own farms.

Before: Packaging materials were unaccountable and often wasted materials were not properly accounted for.
After: Packaging material is now automatically consumed by ProducePak every time we create pallet contents; this keeps an automatic balance of materials. Wasted materials are now entered via stock take, so we know if there are any deviations.

Before: Traceability through the packhouse was not “100%” accurate. Sometimes we would mix produce from different origins (or farmers) and this would not be reflected on our paper based traceability.
After: ProducePak allows us to use PDA’s to scan barcodes (issued by ProducePak when we the produce arrives) to add it to the batch.

Before: On occasion, produce would be added to a batch, and we didn’t know which batch it was added to.
After: We can mix as many origins of produce and still maintain absolute 100% traceability throughout the entire process.

Before: Digging up traceability records could often take a few hours just for one batch, and was often not very accurate.
After: We also put a batch number on the finished product, if the consumer ever has a problem with the quality or traceability of the product, we can now produce a Batch Traceability Report instantly, which shows us full details of the origin and who packed it and when.

Before: Management of raw produce was often prone to error, and occasionally unnecessary waste where produce was not packed in the correct order.
After: ProducePak allows us to easily see and report on all raw produce on hand, when we add it to a batch ProducePak suggests what produce should be packed first (maintaining FIFO); this feature can be overridden by management where necessary. We can now see if we have enough produce to pack our orders, and what the potential excess or shortage will be. We now experience virtually NO raw produce waste due to staff error.

Before: Many activities in the packhouse would be written on paper or spreadsheets by packhouse staff, then later entered by administration staff. For example the dispatch process would be written down three times.
After: Information is entered only once now, directly into ProducePak. Most of this information was entered multiple times.
The dispatch process is streamlined by allowing staff to use the PDA to scan the pallets that are being dispatched, and scanning them one final time at the physical point of truck loading. This PDA process replaces several paper documents, and now means our administration and marketing staff have real time access to information.

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Before: Labeling of incoming raw produce, pallets , and finished product was often inaccurate and makeshift.
We were using a separate program to print barcodes, a spreadsheet for pallet labels, and hand written labels for incoming raw produce. This resulted in many errors by staff, and the problem that the labels are not automatic and integrated into a traceability database.
After: ProducePak now prints our labels automatically at every step throughout the packhouse. The labels all have barcodes and human readable information. There are no more mistakes on labels in our packhouse, and everything is automatically generated such as pallet numbers, and stock arrival numbers.

Before: Pallet management was suffering from inaccuracies due to our hectic packhouse environment often resulting in dispatch staff consigning pallets on a non FIFO basis.
After: During the dispatch process, ProducePak will suggest to staff which pallets should be added to which order. If the pallet does not match the orders specifications for quality or quantity, the staff member is alerted during the consignment process when they scan the pallet label. We now have absolutely zero errors during consignment, and every day we can see the exact status of orders, allowing us to know if we can send staff home or not.

Before: Quality control was often missed or not performed properly, and packhouse management would only find out about this at a later stage. We usually perform a QC on each outgoing pallet, on at least 12 random cartons form each batch, and on stock arrival (raw produce incoming).
After: We can now perform QC using the PDA on the stock arrival process. We use a PC on a QC station in the packhouse to test finished product, and the PDA to perform QC on pallet dispatch.
The results are now quantifiable and we can see performance of individual packers and know what they need retraining for. All QC is now monitored easily by management and we can see if anything was missed.

HillsideGardens awarded $50,000 for traceability solution

nospam@example.com (The Traceability Team) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 22:24:00 -0700
HillSide Gardens, an innovative farm and marketer has been awarded a $50,000 prize by the Canadian Government (Ministers Award) for excellence in Agri-Innovation. The dynamic management team of HillSide Gardens has implemented huge traceability changes, business management improvements, and other initiatives over the past years; making HillSide a leading producer in their field.
HillSide Gardens BackgroundThe management team including Ron Gleason (CEO) and Dan Vanderkooi (Production Manager) have spearheaded a major overhaul of traceability and information systems. Changes to the operational environment include replacing old manual traceability solutions and partially automated traceability solutions with new fully automated high availability management systems. Whilst maintaining a higher level of traceability, the HillSide business has also achieved greater levels of profitability and productivity.

"ProducePak has provided us with the seamless quality control & traceability our operation was looking for. Our customers are satisfied and confident with ProducePak traceability, and we are saving money using the excellent business analysis tools." Ron Gleason, CEO of HILL SIDE GARDENS, Canada

Implementing a business management solution that combines both traceability software and business management software has helped HillSide Gardens to implement new KPI’s in the business, resulting in better analysis of business operations and staff accountability.

HillSide Gardens pride their business operations on high levels of staff productivity, high traceability, and high quality for consumer products. The HillSide team has created an environment in which innovation and creativity is encouraged, with the future always bringing a better quality product to their clients.

The Award
Presented by his honorable Premier McGuinty, showing that Ontario's agri-food industry continues to strengthen the province's economy. This was the theme of the Premier's Summit on Agri-Food, where innovators were recognized with the province's top awards for agri-food innovation excellence:

Hillside Gardens Limited in Simcoe County receives the Minister'sAward of $50,000 for their innovation in implementing an electronic "gate-to-plate" traceability program.

The recipients are being recognized under the Premier's Award for
Agri-Food Innovation Excellence, a $2.5 million, five-year program (now in its third year) established to recognize innovators who contribute to the success of Ontario's agri-food sector.

The innovations of 55 regional winners, who will receive $5,000 each, will be announced at regional award ceremonies this spring.

Quotes

"In these challenging economic times, we need everyone working together
so we can emerge from this recession even stronger. Our farmers produce the
food we eat; their fields are home to wind turbines providing clean, renewable
energy to Ontario families; and they're harvesting crops we're still finding
new uses for in the auto industry. Agriculture has always been one of the
cornerstones of Ontario's strong economy. These awards are a celebration of
the talent and innovation we have growing here."

- Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty
(http://www.premier.gov.on.ca/home/default.asp?Lang=EN)

"Ontario's agri-food sector continues to lead through innovation. With
these awards, we are supporting the creative ideas growing on farms and rural
communities across this province. Together, we are building opportunities that will make our agri-food industry and economy stronger."

- Leona Dombrowsky, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
(http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/about/about.html)

QUICK FACTS
- Ontario's agri-food sector is one of the province's leading
industries, contributing more than $33 billion to the economy every
year.

- In its first three years, the Premier's Award for Agri-Food
Innovation Excellence has attracted more than 550 applications
highlighting on-farm innovations.

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LEARN MORE
See videos (http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/mm/) of previous award
winning innovations and discover the variety of previous award-winning on-farm
innovations at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs website.
Learn more about other government programs supporting innovation
(http://www.mri.gov.on.ca/english/default.asp) in Ontario by visiting the
Ministry of Research and Innovation website.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Minister's Award Recipient ($50,000)
Hillside Gardens Limited - Bradford, Simcoe County
>>

Ron Gleason is helping to strengthen the gate-to-plate connection. He
redesigned an existing software program for use as a farm traceability
program. It's capable of tracing all field activities from harvest, to
packing, to shipping dates and destinations. Lot IDs are assigned in each step
in the process, and the end product is dated with a bar code sticker. The
wireless, computerized system will only allow product that has been assigned
to a load to be picked and scanned. This improves many aspects of the
business, from rotation and quality issues to recall efficiency and inventory
control. The system provides "real time" inventory and work is underway to
expand its capabilities.

About the Awards Program
Awards - The five-year, $2.5-million Premier's Award for Agri-Food
Innovation Excellence is now in its third year. There can be up to 55 regional
award winners chosen annually, with a cash prize of $5,000 each. From these
winners, a Minister's Award of up to $50,000 and a Premier's Award of up to
$100,000 are selected.

Who is eligible? - A farmer, primary producer, groups of farmers,
combination of agri-food businesses, or an agri-food related organization are
all eligible for recognition under this initiative. A farmer must be one of
the applicants of any group. This program is not intended for the research
community as there are other government recognition programs available to this
sector. Applicant/nominees must reside in Ontario and be a Canadian citizen or
permanent resident of Canada. Ontario Public Service staff and immediate
family are not eligible to apply for this program.

Types of eligible innovations - Examples of innovations for this program
include (but are not limited to) improved farm practices, responding to
consumer demands; environmental stewardship; health and safety on the farm;
energy innovations; education and marketing of agriculture to society, and
local food.

For further information: Sherry Persaud, Minister's Office, (416)
326-6439; Brent Ross, Communications Branch, (416) 326-9342

Source: http://ogov.newswire.ca/ontario/GONE/2009/04/06/c7539.html?lmatch=&lang=_e.html
http://www.ProducePak.com