Communicating traceability of organic products to consumers
The legal requirements regarding traceability are set out in the EU Food Safety Regulation 178/2002. Companies have to merely document suppliers and recipients of goods in a manner of “one step forward” and “one step backwards”. The Regulation does not contain any additional detailed rules as to how such documentation is to be organized by a business operator. Normally, standard business accounting is sufficient for compliance with the legal requirements.
Additional legal requirements exist only for individual product groups, e.g. under the EU Beef Labelling Regulation or the provisions on marketing standards for eggs.
Even though the EU Food Safety Regulation 178/2002 does not make detailed provisions it has caused a lot of movement in the food sector. In the context of the many discussions regarding the implementation of this Regulation, the sector representatives have realized the importance of the traceability issue. Traceability is the central instrument for quality assurance in a business. It is a precondition for being able to respond to customer complaints or internally detected quality deviations. If a product recall becomes necessary, the degree of economic damage is closely correlated with the quality of traceability of the goods (speed and accuracy).
Companies which have realized this are also willing to invest in traceability. However, the benefits of this investment are not immediately visible to the consumer of a product. Therefore companies are moving towards also using the issue of traceability in customer communications. The additional benefit to the customer thus becomes visible. This in turn allows the company to stand out from the competition and achieves a direct additional benefit from investing in traceability.
Such communication instruments are already being used by individual companies such as IGLO and also by umbrella initiatives such as the Verein für kontrollierte alternative Tierhaltungsformen e.V. (Association for controlled alternative types of livestock husbandry) or Bio mit Gesicht GmbH (Giving organic a face).
As part of the workshop on “Opportunities for communicating traceability of organic products to the consumer”, held in Frankfurt/Main on March 15, 2007, the following questions were discussed:
- Does communicating traceability have a benefit?
- For whom does it have a benefit?
- How does it have to be implemented to be of optimum use?
As conclusions of the workshop the three questions were answered as follows:
The question as to whether the communication of traceability has a benefit was answered with an unequivocal yes. The answer to the question as to who benefits from traceability can be summarized by saying that all sections of the value chain can be beneficiaries. The question as to how communication must be practiced so as to achieve a great benefit from traceability was answered thus: Traceability and quality assurance must be combined, statements must be truthful, and communication must be executed throughout the entire value chain in a spirit of partnership.
