Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) Leadership Council:
All companies in produce industry encouraged to follow PTI best practices
The Leadership Council, representing 32 companies in the produce industry, held its semiannual meeting last week in conjunction with FMI Connect and United Fresh 2014 in Chicago.
“The PTI Leadership Council continues to encourage companies large and small in the produce industry to follow PTI best practices,” said Mike Agostini, Senior Category Director, Produce, Wal-Mart Stores, co-chair of the PTI Leadership Council. “In just seven months of PTI implementation at Wal-Mart, we have seen significant increases in PTI case labels on products, and we are already seeing important benefits in supply chain efficiencies resulting from our implementation.”
The Council has also emphasized that industry-wide adoption of the use of Advance Ship Notice, an Electronic Data Interchange transaction, for exchanging traceability data, as well as the outbound recording of the GS1-128 barcode data on cases of produce from distribution centres to retail stores and foodservice operations are critical to ensuring that the vision of PTI is fully realized.
In other business, the Council announced updates to the PTI website have been completed to better organize the tools and resources available to industry members in support of PTI implementations. In addition, council members agreed to share their implementation challenges and success stories via the Initiative’s website at www.producetraceability.org to drive activities and continue the PTI momentum for both the grower/packer/shipper and buyer communities.
For more information:
Sue Lewis Krisztina Vida
CPMA GS1 US
Tel: +1 613-226-4187, ext 225 Tel: +1 609-620-8042
Email: slewis@cpma.ca Email: kvida@gs1us.org
Meg Miller Ray Gilmer
PMA United Fresh
Tel: +1 302-738-7100 ext 3031 Tel: +1 202-303-3425
Email: mmiller@pma.com Email: rgilmer@unitedfresh.org