PTI Leadership Council supports use of advance ship notice for traceability

Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) Leadership Council members agree the use of the Advance Ship Notice (ASN) is the preferred method for exchanging traceability data between trading partners in the produce industry. As a result of industry's implementation efforts with ASNs and the Hybrid Pallet Label-which is an interim option for the industry to communicate traceability data between trading partners-the PTI Buyer Working Group, in collaboration with other PTI working groups, has developed two new guidance documents examining the uses and benefits of both methods.

The Leadership Council, representing 32 companies in the produce industry, held its semiannual meeting this week in conjunction with the Produce Marketing Association's (PMA) Fresh Summit in New Orleans, and is in the final stages of approving the release of the "PTI Guidance on Benefits of ASN versus Hybrid Pallet Labels" and "PTI Best Practice for Use of Hybrid Pallet Labels by Receivers." The Council also discussed the need for PTI working groups to help identify simplified e-commerce solutions allowing all industry participants to continue progress toward PTI implementation.

"The ASN provides order and shipment information in one electronic transaction sent from the supplier to the receiver," said Doug Grant, co-chair of the Leadership Council and Senior Vice President and Chief Operations Officer of The Oppenheimer Group that recently published the results of the company's ASN pilot project in a case study now available on the PTI website.

In other business, the council discussed PTI implementation activities and challenges, including the need to document the progress made by both the grower/packer/shipper and buyer communities.

"The PTI Leadership Council encourages companies to update or complete the PTI self-reporting scorecard available on the PTI website, so that we can continue to gain better insight into how far our industry has come," said Mike Agostini, Senior Director, Produce, Wal-Mart Stores, co-chair of the PTI Leadership Council.
The council has agreed to ask PTI volunteer companies through all the various working groups to complete the scorecard by November 15.

For more information:
CPMA: Paul Renaud, prenaud@cpma.ca, +1 613-226-4187, ext 225
GS1 US: Krisztina Vida, kvida@gs1us.org, +1 609-620-8042
PMA: Meg Miller, mmiller@pma.com, +1 7302-738-7100 ext 3031
United Fresh: Ray Gilmer, rgilmer@unitedfresh.org, +1 202-303-3425