Blockchain and Traceability

In September of 2019, the FDA requested input from industry stakeholders to shape an FDA Blueprint for a New Era of Smarter Food Safety. A subset of the United Fresh Food Safety Council provided comments to the FDA with regards to that blueprint, available here. United Fresh continues to work with the agency and members to leverage the latest advances in research and technology that can improve the safety of fresh produce, and promote consumer health. Additional information on the FDA New Era Blueprint can be found on their website here. 

Beyond the Blueprint Bullets: Produce Perspectives on the FDA New Era of Smarter Food Safety

August 5, 2020 at 2:00 pm (EDT) (11:00 am PDT) 

The recently released FDA New Era Blueprint has few surprises in its intent and scope as many of the high-level initiatives have been underway within FDA and shared in various forms with stakeholders. This webinar will go beyond the numerous bulleted framework points, to share the insights, implications, anticipated impacts, and opportunities for engagement in the journey with FDA. United Fresh Produce Association, Western Growers, and PMA are committed to fostering a more streamlined, efficient, innovative, and, as appropriate, collaborative process for guidance, policy, and regulation.  A key element of this webinar will be to identify the approaches, needs, barriers and timeline to advance the concepts proposed in the New Era document.

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Supply chain wide adoption of electronic traceability. The Produce Traceability Initiative, sponsored by Canadian Produce Marketing Association, GS1 US, Produce Marketing Association and United Fresh Produce Association, is designed to help the industry maximize the effectiveness of current traceback procedures, while developing a standardized industry approach [leveraging the GS1 system of standards] to enhance the speed and efficiency of traceability systems for the future.

The 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.

• Main PTI webpage
• FAQ about Fresh Produce Traceability (9/18)
• FAQ about PTI and produce traceability (6/11)
• Best practices for formatting case labels (6/19)

The one up/ one down recordkeeping requirements for registered facilities pre-date FSMA. However, FSMA grants FDA additional authority to require better traceability information for certain foods. FDA will propose these requirements and the foods to which they will apply in September 2020, with a final rule expected in November 2022.

• General (archived) page
• Existing recordkeeping requirements (2004)(the actual requirements are about 9/10ths the way down; the rest is legalese and explanation): 
• FSMA Section 204 (2011)(Congressional instruction to FDA regarding traceability) 
• FSMA-related Pilots (8/12)(334 pp; conducted by IFT)
• Bottom of the resource library has additional information on the FSMA-related pilots: https://www.ift.org/gftc/resources.aspx
• FDA report to Congress regarding traceability pilots and FDA recommendations (11/16) (takes a while to load but just 28 pp)

GS1 is the international standards setting organization that facilitates business-to-business communication. The ability of cash registers to scan UPC codes owes to the use of GS1 standards. Traceability initiatives for a variety of food products relies on GS1 standards, so that there is interoperability through the supply chain. PTI is based on GS1 standards.

• Foodservice GS1 US Standards in use (Fresh-foods)
• Foodservice GS1 US Standards Initiative
• GS1 (global) Global Traceability for Fresh Fruit and Vegetable (5/10)(PMA and CPMA were contributors)

• The Global Food Traceability Center main page 
• Best practices for produce traceability (the KDEs and CTEs that apply to produce)
• Bottom of the resource library has additional information on the FSMA-related pilots: https://www.ift.org/gftc/resources.aspx
• Work done for FDA on Tomato Tracing 
• Foundational work done for FDA putting forth the concepts of Critical Tracking Events and Key Data Elements

• The Buzz on Blockchain (April 2018 webinar)
• Forbes article on blockchain in fresh produce (Feb 2019)
• IBM blockchain blog 

• General article on FSMA and traceability (specific to produce, and referencing PTI) (5/14)
• QA Magazine article: Is your traceability system as modern as the rest of your life? (2/19) 
• Textbook: A Kennedy and J McEntire, Food Traceability: From binders to blockchain. (2019) 
• Food Safety Tech article describing FDA’s FSMA traceability authority (2014)
• Consumer letter to FDA on traceability (5/18)
• On-demand webinar on product identification, explaining the structure and use of bar codes (developed by United Fresh, PMA, CPMA, GS1 US and GS1 Canada)