On Thursday, March 24, the Dutch company, AgriPlace, held a webinar about optimizing suppliers' and product food safety's social sustainability data collection. Their system, AgriPlace Chain, offers companies an easy, fully automated insight into food safety and sustainability across the chain. Many companies already use this system worldwide, just like much of the fruit and vegetable industry in the Netherlands, including Fruitmasters, Hillfresh, Jaguar fresh, Olympic Fruit, and Harvest House.
Chain of custody, new legislation creating more work, risk
AgriPlace Chain provides a solution for the increasing steps expected and made regarding food safety, social control, and sustainability. AgriPlace's Nico Broersen addressed the recent developments and expectations around food safety and sustainability. He says, from this year, more and more market participants, like Lidl and Aldi, are making a GlobalGAP Chain of custody mandatory. That means all links in the chain must be GlobalGAP certified.
Also, in Germany, there is already supply chain legislation whereby all large companies must ensure that human rights are respected throughout the chain. A similar law has been announced in the Netherlands. Steps are being taken in the area of sustainability too. For example, in collaboration with Global GAP, Lidl is going to launch a sustainability standard, and Tesco is making LEAF compulsory in its fresh supply chain.
A single, complete overview of supplier quality. Clockwise, f.l.t.r: Certification, food safety, social, and sustainability. Lab analyses & proposed pesticide lists. Contracts, supplier statements, product specifications. Chain overview, easy to see products' origin.
Nico thinks companies will only be expected to do more in these areas in the future. For example, insight at the grower level will become a must, and pesticide requirements will become stricter. There will also be more monitoring of growers' and suppliers' carbon footprint, biodiversity will become increasingly essential, and the demand for social certificates will rise.
Time-saving and complete overview into supplier quality
Nico and Simon Elting with AgriPlace say the AgriPlace Chain saves time by automatically collecting, validating, and sharing quality and sustainability data while improving insights. Simon explains that the system provides a complete overview of supplier quality, and suppliers can easily share their information in a trader's portal. Certification details and add-ons within the chain are also available at the push of a button. "So, you can map out your entire supply chain and quickly identify its risks and opportunities," says Simon.
"You can easily see which supplier meets a client's demand, and the system checks that everything needed is there." The company plans to add lab analysis and sustainability insight within the chain into its AgriPlace Chain soon as well.
Main benefits of digitalization with AgriPlace Chain. F.l.t.r: High client service and safety; Automation saves time and money; Overview of market opportunities and chain risks.
Tobias Geraedts and Mari Hilgerdenaar of the ASF Group rounded off the webinar. They specialize in soft fruit packaging and supply. They explained they used to manage supplier information on their in-house ERP system. However, that caused problems sometimes as data was not always correct and up-to-date. "Implementing AgriPlace Chain clarified and simplified everything, and the automated process saved a lot of time," says Mari. Simon concluded the event by giving the digital guests a tour of the system.
You can watch the recorded webinar (in Dutch) here.
For more information:
Nico Broersen
Simon Elting
AgriPlace
Tel: +31 (0) 613 369 752 (Nico Broersen)
Tel: +31 (0) 614 388 200 (Simon Elting)
Email: info@agriplace.com
Website: www.agriplace.com/chain