As the food and beverage sector strives to navigate the complex landscape of regulatory requirements, ensuring accurate product information and timely compliance using modern, digital tools has become paramount for maintaining brand integrity and safeguarding consumer health.
Food recalls impact brand image and profit
Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) coordinated 791 food recalls between 2013 and 2022, with 87 per cent consumer-initiated and 13 per cent trade-initiated. Of those, almost 46 per cent were due to incorrect labelling, including undeclared allergens. As well as posing a serious health and safety hazard to consumers, food recalls undermine marketing efforts to increase brand awareness and loyalty, when products are suddenly pulled from the shelves. In the current economic climate where consumer confidence is wavering, food and beverage businesses cannot afford to take such costly risks.
For ANZ food suppliers and their customers, product data management has been a slow-moving phenomenon. For years, the industry has leaned on spreadsheet-based Product Information Forms (PIF) to exchange crucial product data – ingredients, origins, nutritional information, allergens, certifications and more. While PIF is a step in the right direction, manually updating each PIF on spreadsheets is burdensome and strains resources.
In addition, the manual process makes it highly prone to errors, inevitably leading to compliance and certification risks. Bottlenecks in processes and legacy systems lacking integration negatively impact efficiency and productivity. In turn, sales revenue opportunities will take a hit due to hindered innovation, hurting company profitability.
Digitalising data and processes reduces risk
The integration of foundational product development platforms like Centric Product Lifecycle Management (Centric PLM) with the online PIF portal, Bizcaps PIF Manager transforms the management of product information for the food industry. This combination facilitates the automatic creation, maintenance, and exchange of PIFs, eradicating manual entries and reducing errors. Such seamless automation not only drives efficiency and streamlines compliance but also frees up resources to focus on innovation and adding value.
Graham Jones, ANZ sales director at Centric Software says: “Our customer sought a seamless process from raw materials to finished goods, desiring a single user interface and one source of truth, eliminating manual data entry. Centric’s integration with Bizcaps ensures PIFs are seamlessly received in the Centric system, and when approved, updates to recipes, nutrients and allergens are made without re-keying. For finished goods, sending PIFs to customers happens directly from the Centric UI, guaranteeing accuracy from one source of truth. With Bizcaps and Centric, manual PIF handling is obsolete.”
In collaboration with Bizcaps, Centric will be delivering a webinar on the power of automating PIF management. Learn how you can reduce the risk of food recalls, streamline compliance and drive product development efficiency by registering your seat at the webinar.
Webinar: Automating PIF Management with Centric Software & Bizcaps
April 30, 2024 at 11am (AEDT) / 1pm (NZST).
- Register now for the PIF webinar: https://bit.ly/3TY5UCV
