October 13, 2021

Traceability Trends for Vegetables and Fruit Supply Chain

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Balanced nutrition and a healthy lifestyle are the stand-out trends of our reality. Thus, fruit and veg are essential elements of people’s everyday well-being, so the demand for complete transparency of the vegetable and fruit supply chain has increased dramatically.

First and foremost, traceability for fresh fruits and vegetables means safety and sustainability, allowing consumers to track farmers and farms, crop and harvesting methods, warehouse conditions and product processing, packing quality and logistics, and more.

Besides, with fully traceable food supply chains, you get access to fruit and vegetable distribution. You can check all the fresh produce you consume using a simple QR code on product packaging.

Such an emphasis on fresh produce traceability, food traceability software, and fruit and vegetable supply chain management unhesitatingly offers several traceability trends we would like to showcase in this guide.

Fruits and vegetables supply chain and improved food safety

The supply chain of fresh fruits and vegetables goes through different problems with product storage, packaging, transportation, spoilage, and more. Furthermore, over 400 thousand people die from food contamination, and incidents with food safety cost the world economy billions of dollars yearly. These circumstances give rise to customers’ doubts and affect their confidence in the quality of fresh foods they are suggested to buy.

Moreover, the latest study conducted by the EIT Food TrustTracker has shown the top five factors consumers evaluate when choosing fresh produce. Thus, to satisfy buyers’ demand, the product has to boast good taste and should be healthy, safe, sustainable, and entirely authentic. The survey stats determine that customer confidence in the food they select has increased to 8% since 2018.

Another significant reason for particular attention to food security and safety parameters is the COVID-19 pandemic, making the digitalization of the vegetable and fruit supply chain a necessity for consumers to access the complete product information.

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COVID-19 and supply chain of fruits and vegetables

Verified suppliers of fresh produce working on a contract basis come as a massive benefit to the entire retail sector. The execution of contracts helps to polish the vegetables and fruits supply chain and ensures steady and timely supplies of fresh produce to consumers.

Indeed, COVID-19 has made a significant impact on the entire world, and the market of fresh fruits and veggies is not an exception. The pandemic at its peak forced several countries to amass and store away various vegetables, and some products with a longer shelf life, such as onions and potatoes, attained complete stockouts.

Moreover, food supply issues brought temporary changes to the entire vegetable and fruit supply chain. Thus, consumers experiencing a lack of fresh produce decided to compensate for such a shortage by replenishing food stocks with canned and frozen fruit and veg. This tendency faded away smoothly as the supply chain of vegetables and fruits gained improvements with the help of food chain traceability.

AI and traceability in veg and fruit supply chain

Intestinal diseases caused by Escherichia coli, advanced food safety rules and regulations, increased awareness of food consumption, and several other factors induced the need for a complete transformation of the veg and fresh fruit supply chain management.

Innovation is the harbinger of progress, so enhancing the fruit and vegetable supply chain with traceability and artificial intelligence technologies is the key to industry transparency and consumers’ awareness, health, and well-being. Do you hear about hackathon ideas for retail? Find more in our article.

Therefore, food supply chain traceability allows buyers to access data on products manufacturing and storage conditions, available stockings of perishable goods, food packaging and delivery essentials, and more. This information helps to build trust between consumers and food production companies or farms.

Profound inventory management of perishable products

Usually, result-driven inventory management requires precise manual work with various spreadsheets, which causes plenty of human errors and failures in the vegetable and fruit supply chain. The traceability in the supply chain of fresh fruits and vegetables allows automating all the manual processes providing better data insights.

Besides, automation in the retail industry also helps specialized organizations to control the performance of the fruit and veg market and substantively inspect compliance with the product information declared to buyers.

Additionally, comprehensive inventory management achieved through food traceability helps monitor product imports and exports even at the government-wide level, facilitate fresh produce administration, and adapt to consumer demand.

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Full compliance with global regulations

A diversity of quality standards and food safety regulations related to the supply chain of fruits and vegetables provoked a complete digitalization and synchronization of the industry of fruits and veggies.

There is a range of certification practices for perishable products’ traceability, and meeting these standards is pivotal for every company handling fruit and veg and other fresh produce. ISO, GlobalGAP, BRC, HACCP, and other specialized certification practices for fruits and vegetables supply chain traceability allow companies and farms providing fresh produce to make the entire supply chain far more transparent at every stage.

Therefore, with proper food traceability software, farm location information, date of harvesting and packing, processing and transportation details, warehouse, logistics & retails data becomes available for every consumer.

Fine-tune your vegetable and fruit supply chain

To sum up, the effectiveness and profitability of food supply chain traceability defined traceability trends helping manufacturers and buyers achieve their goals. Thus, farmers and fresh produce companies can boost their reputation and improve brand positions in the competitive market. Meanwhile, consumers can get exhaustive information about products they consume, ensuring the selected fruit and veg meet the highest quality standards and are safe, healthy, and fresh.

The traceability used to improve all the vegetable and fruit supply chain elements provides better control and administration and promotes awareness among consumers. Furthermore, fruit and vegetable supply chain traceability helps to improve tracking, manage the inventory correctly, refine customer service, simplify product recalls handling, raise product quality and safety, and more.

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Coreteka is your number one company for high-end food traceability software development. We analyze the latest traceability trends delivering cost-effective traceability solutions for your particular needs.

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If you are looking for a dedicated team to enhance your vegetable and fruit supply chain with premier traceability software, please contact us!