Traceability in processing of

food
July 2014
Definition of traceability.

The term traceability is defined by the

International Organization for Standardization (ISO),
in his International Vocabulary of Basic and General
Terms in Metrology: As:

The property of the result of a measurement or the value of a standard where

this may be related to specified references, usually
national or international standards, through a continuous chain of
comparisons all with specified uncertainties.

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Definition of traceability
According to the Food Safety Committee of AECOC:

Traceability is understood as the set of those pre-established procedures and

self-sufficient that allow knowledge of the history, location, and trajectory of a
product or batch of products along the supply chain at a moment
given, through certain tools.

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Traceability of food

Commonly, food traceability is the 'diary' of the product where we can read everything
his story. Traceability acts as a tool for food quality and safety.
It can refer to:

– The origin of the food or components. A product or food that must have its history followed.
Traceability is recording all elements related to the history of the food, from the raw material
to the gondola or counter, that is to say to the end of the marketing chain of its cuts.

– The history of the processes applied to the product or food. A transformation process in which
different elements intervene.

– The instruments or measuring equipment used in the transformation process. These instruments
They must be traceable to ensure reliability in their results.

When we refer to food traceability, we are talking about the first two cases,
but we must not forget that also the instruments we use in the process of
transformation of food, scales, refrigerators, must be traceable and guarantee this
food security.

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How to carry out this traceability?

Information Registration: each agent involved in the supply chain must have
a system prepared to generate, manage, and record traceability information
necessary at all times.

Correct identification of goods and associated characteristics:

– All Consumption Units and groupings must be coded and symbolized with
a code that identifies them individually and unambiguously.

– All Units of Consumption and groups must have the expiration date printed.
the preferred consumption and/or lot number.

– The transmission of information: The transmission of the necessary traceability information to the
next agent of the supply chain.

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Scope of traceability
PRODUCTION Waterfall of the
FARMER traceability

TRANSPORT

TRANSFORMATION Internal System:

PRIMARY Company responsibility

TRANSPORT

PRODUCTION

DISTRIBUTION

TRADE

CONSUMER

TRAZAB.
TRACEABILITY BACKWARDS TRACEABILITY FORWARD
INTERNAL
Why traceability?

New regulations, demands of

the consumers.

New challenges that require new and

integrated responses by various
chain actors.

Growing concern about the

consumer safety, for it
both a need to minimize the
risks of processes inside and outside
from the production centers.

Need for real-time information

real and reliable. THE INTERNET OF
THE THINGS

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Global status of issues related to
traceability
Safety standards,
Regulations. quality, management.
European Union. Standards for production
– New Legislation on Hygiene primary.
Food in Europe - – Nature's Choice (TESCO)
Mandatory HACCP. – EurepGap – Global Gap
– EC 178/2002 – General Food Law.
Quality Standards Plants.
– National Regulations.
– Safety Standards - HACCP.
– Regulation EC No. 1935/2004
– BRC Global Food Standard
packaging
– International Food Standard (IFS)
USA
– SQF 1000 and 2000 code.
– Bioterrorism Act 2012.
Management Standards
– COOL: Country of Origin Labeling.
Quality.
Japan. – ISO 9001 – 2002
– Food Sanitary Law – ISO 22000 - 2004

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Global status of issues related to
traceability

Traceability standards.
Global.
– GS1 Traceability Standard +
Sectorial.
– ISO 22005 (NTP-ISO 22005:2008)
BEST PRACTICES
LOGISTICS) Traceability in the chain
food. General principles and
basic requirements for design and
implementation of the system.
European Union.
– TRACE
USA/Canada.
– CAN TRACE
– PMA / CPMA Fresh Produce.

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Traceability. Types.

When it comes to understanding the traceability of a product that is moving to

through its supply chain or its logistics branch, the concept of
traceability is divided into two types:

• Internal traceability is obtaining the trace that a product leaves through all the
internal processes of a company, with their manipulations, their composition, the
machinery used, its shift, its temperature, its batch, etc., that is, all the indications
what they do or can do to vary the product for the final consumer.

• External Traceability is to externalize the internal trace data and add some to it.
indications more if necessary, such as a break in the packaging, a change in the chain
of temperature, etc.
As a consequence, we see that to obtain the traceability of a product, we must record the indications that
it leaves the product while moving along the chain, whether in the normal direction or in the reverse direction (such as
reverse logistics). There are multiple ways to record indicators, such as temperature sensors, humidity, etc.;
but there are few methods to transmit these signals in a standardized way among the different agents of
the chain, among which stands out the codingGS1-128and theEPC.

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Standard format for traceability

Currently, there is a proposal for a standard format to contain, transmit, and share traceability.
They are encapsulated traceability ILE files. These files can contain the complete history of
any product, in accordance with the formal restrictions of any of the current legislations in
Regarding traceability and food safety.

This consists of the ability to reconstruct the history, journey, or application of a certain product,
identifying:

– Origin of its components.

– History of the processes applied to the product.
– Distribution and location after delivery.

By having this information, it is possible to deliver defined products to specific markets, with the guarantee of
to know for sure the origin and history of it. The concept of traceability is undoubtedly associated with
modern production processes and higher quality and value products for the end customer.

Nowadays, there is technology that allows for accurate tracking of the path a product takes in the supply chain.
productive and marketing. The integration of Internetcommunication networks, wireless access, software
specialized, mobile devicesGPSamong others, make the idea of being able to detect the exact point a reality
the moment when an event occurred.

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Advantages of traceability

The new and demanding regulations of the European Union and the United States require the
exporting countries of food products must have verifiable traceability systems.

When it comes to traceability for export, one of the hurdles to overcome is cultural.
due to the lack of agreement on what the concept means and what its scope is. According to the
The seriousness of the incident, the usual practice indicates the withdrawal of all merchandise from the market.
associated with the lot with problems. However, if the traceability information is not applied at the level
from each box, instead of removing the conflicting batch, the company should remove all of its
shipments to all destinations. The economic consequences are enormous, but this is added to the
negative impact on the image and commercial credibility, both of the company and of the country.
Even if these events only exceptionally have consequences for health
consumer.

When atraceability system it is supported on an infrastructure, based on the

Information and communication technologies (ICT), traceability can provide
important utilities to the different actors in a value chain such as: efficient management
of logistics and supply and increased productivity.

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Applications.

The word 'traceability' exists in Spanish and has been approved by the RAE. Another
the appropriate term is: "product tracking" or it can also be used
product tracking

It has applications in various industries and areas, particularly in countries with

greater development in which specific regulations have been published.

Traceability is applied for reasons related to business improvements.

that justify their presence: greater efficiency in productive processes, lower
costs against failures, better service to customers, etc.

It is feasible for certification, for example in quality management systems,

environmental management and control systems known as chain of custody.

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Product identification

Within the company, the correct identification of the product in each

one of the stages that the product goes through from its entry into its process,
as raw material, up to its exit as a finished product.

For identification, there are different methods that allow describing the path that
has made the product and its current characteristics, as well as the percentage of
work done on it before its release (whether to the market, to another process
within the same company, etc).

The two most used technologies in this field are: barcodes and the
RFID

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Barcodes
Although, with the advancement of technologies, this method is slowly being
displaced by other types of techniques, such as RFID systems, the truth is that
so far the majority of the goods entering the market are
identified through the Barcode.

Over the years, its use has expanded in such a way that currently the
barcode is used on a massive scale, even in retail stores to
carry out automatic billing of the items.

What are barcodes?

Basically, the barcode consists of a series of numbers that

represent certain information regarding the product, and that is found
encoded in a set of vertical parallel lines with various thicknesses and
spaces between them. Both the lines and their thickness and of the
space between them, represent exact information about a specific
product, in order to be classified and identified throughout the entire logistics chain.

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What are they for?

Its functionality lies in the fact that when a barcode is scanned by a receiver of this type,
it becomes possible to capture the information that is encoded, which is why there exists a
correspondence, called symbolism, between the code and the information it represents.

There are four types of symbology in the world of barcodes, whose difference lies in
whether it is about continuous or discrete symbolism, and at the same time whether it is two-dimensional or multidimensional.

– Continuous or discrete symbolism. Continuous symbolism refers to barcode codes in which the
characters of the same begin with a space, followed by a bar, or vice versa, while in
in the case of the discreet, the codes begin and end with a bar, with the space between them being ignored.

– Two-dimensional or multidimensional symbology. In the codes that use two-dimensional symbology, it is

regardless of the width of the bars, which can be wide or thin, while in the case of the
Multidimensional symbolism, the width of the bars is the result of an exact multiple of a determined thickness.

One of the fundamental characteristics of barcodes lies in their components,

thanks to which the coding of information related to the product is possible.

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How are they composed?

Barcodes consist of a module, which refers to the minimum unit of the code, and each one
The bars and the spaces are made up of a set of modules. Likewise, they consist of the
called bar, an element that in coding corresponds to the binary value 1, the space, which represents the value
binary 0, and the characters, which are formed by the different bars and spaces that make up the code.

The barcode stores the data related to the product it accompanies, which, once captured by the
Reader devices are processed and sent to a larger system located on a computer, where it is stored.
the product information. In order to centralize the information obtained through the barcode,
various computer equipment is usually interconnected, located in places such as branches and others,
so that the data is available to whoever needs it.

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RFID

Today, barcodes are scanned manually millions of times every day.

to enter data into the computers and be able to record the evidence needed by the
traceability. The supply chain is extraordinarily dynamic, where
goods and transactions flow in both directions; where what is
The goal is to provide the customer with what they want, when they want it, and where they want it.
I want.

RFID energizes the supply chain by achieving faster delivery.

personalizing orders, reducing stocks and with the reverse chain
prepared. Today, RFID addresses the challenges posed in a
global economy; without forgetting to comply with current legislation in the field of
traceability.
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 Video 1

Video 2

Thank you

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