Every year, approximately 1.3 billion tons of food produced globally goes to waste.
To address this problem, companies have invested in lot tracking and tracing solutions. By focusing on improved supply chain management and accurate inventory control, produce businesses benefit from faster response times to safety issues and increased consumer confidence.
Platforms like https://usesilo.com/products/lot-tracking-traceability help produce businesses more effectively manage and track their lots. By truly knowing your inventory and eliminating the guesswork with Silo, you benefit from unparalleled transparency, letting you act fast when necessary.
This article explores how lot tracking and tracing can reduce food waste and the different ways that technology can be implemented to improve this process.
The Benefits of Lot Tracking and Tracing
Lot tracking and tracing allow for the proper management of products throughout the supply chain. Here are some of the key benefits of lot tracking and tracing.
Improved Supply Chain Management
By tracking products as they move through the supply chain, businesses can identify inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and areas for improvement. This can lead to better collaboration and communication between suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers, resulting in a more efficient and streamlined supply chain. This then translates into less waste.
Accurate Inventory Management
With lot tracking and tracing, businesses can keep track of inventory levels in real time. This means they can more quickly identify shortages, overstocking, and other issues leading to waste. By better understanding their inventory levels, businesses can make better decisions about ordering, production, and sales, reducing the risk of spoilage and waste.
Faster Response Times to Food Safety Issues
Food safety is a critical issue for businesses in the food industry. During a safety recall, lot tracking and tracing allow businesses to quickly identify and remove affected products from the market. This helps reduce the risk of illness and injury to consumers and can also help protect the business' reputation.
Better Quality Control
Lot tracking and tracing also allow businesses to implement better quality control measures, since businesses can identify potential quality issues early on and take corrective action before products reach consumers.
This helps to ensure that products meet the required standards for safety and quality, reducing the risk of waste and product recalls.
Increased Customer Confidence
Customers are becoming increasingly concerned about the safety and quality of their food. By implementing lot tracking and tracing, businesses can provide customers with greater transparency and visibility into the supply chain. This can help build trust and confidence in the brand, increasing sales and customer loyalty.
Lot Tracking and Tracing Techniques
Lot tracking and tracing can be implemented using various techniques and technologies. Here are some of the most commonly used ones.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software Solutions
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software combines the features of multiple business management systems to help keep better track of inventory.
One key function of ERP software is its ability to alleviate lot tracking and tracing demands. This involves tracking the containers or batches of products as they pass through various stages of production. These platforms also streamline demand forecasting and supply chain management processes, which can help to reduce waste.
Barcode Scanning
Barcodes are a widely used technique for lot tracking and tracing. Each product is assigned a unique barcode that can be scanned at each stage of the supply chain. This allows businesses to track the movement of products and quickly identify any issues or inefficiencies.
Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID)
RFID is a technology that uses radio waves to identify and track products. RFID tags are attached to products and can be read wirelessly. This allows for real-time tracking of products throughout the supply chain, leading to greater efficiency and better inventory control.
Global Positioning System (GPS) Tracking
GPS tracking allows businesses to track the movement of products in real time. This is particularly useful for monitoring the movement of perishable goods, such as fresh produce or seafood, as it enables businesses to ensure that products are transported at the correct temperature and within the required timeframe.
Blockchain Technology
Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger system that allows for secure and transparent tracking. Each transaction is recorded on a blockchain, providing a complete audit trail of the product's journey from farm to fork.
Challenges to Implementing Lot Tracking and Tracing
While lot tracking and tracing can greatly benefit produce businesses, implementing it is not without its challenges. Here are some of the key challenges often experienced.
Resistance from Stakeholders
One significant challenge to implementing lot tracking and tracing is resistance from stakeholders. This can include suppliers who are unwilling or unable to provide the necessary data or employees who are resistant to change.
Businesses need to work to address these concerns and ensure that all stakeholders are on board with new systems.
Limited Technology Infrastructure
Some businesses may not have the necessary technology infrastructure to support lot tracking and tracing.
This can include outdated or incompatible hardware, software, or communication systems. Businesses may need to invest in new technology infrastructure to support the new system.
It’s best to look for platforms that offer integrations, as this can make implementation much smoother.
A Need for Standardized Data Exchange
Businesses implementing lot tracking and tracing need to ensure that they’re using a standardized data exchange format.
This is necessary to ensure that all stakeholders can share and access the necessary information, regardless of the system they are using. Developing a standardized format can be challenging, particularly if multiple stakeholders are involved.
Despite Challenges, Lot Tracking and Tracing are Beneficial Overall
While there are challenges to implementing lot tracking and tracing, it can bring about numerous benefits to produce businesses.
By using the proper techniques and technologies, businesses can reduce food waste, increase efficiency, and improve overall sustainability.
Here we are sharing some important tips on How to successfully reduce food waste in pre-school.
Food waste is a BIG issue in municipalities.
To save the environment we need to work on preventing food waste.
Let us have a look at our article and let us know your view on it and share your suggestion too.
Food is very precious in the life and intimate to human’s heart. Basically, it is a need of every person. No, one can live without a food same as water.
In fact, we see in the restaurants most of the people wastage food and leftovers in the plate. Don’t left the food also, you can reuse that food on next time by storing it into the right place.
If you don’t know and you don’t think food wastage affects you, then think at once and realize really, we should stop to waste the food.
Some basic ways to reduce the wastage of food:
Purchase according to requirement:
Do you buy the food according to your need?
If no, then start from today to purchase only the required things as per your need. The wastage of food breaks down the landfill, create methane gas i.e greenhouse gas. It also create potential environmental and public health risks.Don’t serve over food:
Provide food as they required. Especially, while serving food to children. If, need more food then take it on second time.
Reducing wastage of food also impacts on reduce the waste on the environment such as public health and their amenties.Store leftovers in the freezer:
Keep store the lefted food in the right place. Leftovers can store in many ways and it is not just for holidays. Most of the people store the food in the freezer and often, they forget and after long time pick it out from the freezer and toss the food due to bad smell or not able to eat.
Donate food to the needy:
Also, can submit your leftovers in the donate kitchens so that with time it will be eaten by someone before getting damaged or expires. Helps to needy persons who have no food to eat.
Compost if you can:
Composing leftover food is the beneficial way to reuse food by turning food wastage into energy for plants. Not, cooked veggies can compost because they have oil, butter, fat. Just compost which is totally well mixed into the pile.
Source Link: https://indianrestaurantgandhi.com/ways-to-reduce-the-wastage-of-food/
