Have you noticed how product safety and authenticity have become key buying criteria among your clients? They want to be sure you deliver quality and not some counterfeit products. This is only possible through full supply-chain visibility and traceability. Thanks to common standards and guidelines for the agrobusiness industry, supported by state-of-the-art solutions and technologies for serialisation and aggregation, your supply chain becomes more agile and cost-efficient. This allows for total quality management throughout the chain, which in turn, inspires trust in your brand.
Managing complex logistics in a competitive world
Harmonisation and transparency are the way forward to improve your internal supply chain operations, but also to increase traceability all the way down to the end-users. Customers increasingly request guarantees about the origin and authenticity of the products they’re buying, and this is no doubt valid for plant protection and seeds.
Counterfeit products are dangerous for consumers and illegal trade channels are tenacious. Phyteis estimates that 14% of pesticides on the European market are counterfeit or illegal1. It is paramount that agrobusiness and plant-science companies counter this unfair competition. The best way to do this is by capturing and sharing transparent information about the end-to-end journey of your products. This calls for a next step in traceability, for instance by adopting the CRISTAL norms.
CRISTAL standards for traceability
To promote full supply chain visibility and security, CropLife International (the global advocate for the plant science industry), developed a set of best practices to ‘Communicate Reliable Information and Standards To Agriculture and Logistics’, CRISTAL in short.
This voluntary system proposes a standardised electronic language for the agro-industry to streamline data-exchange and inter-operability between logistics partners. Thanks to granular identification of products, boxes and pallets, you know at any given time where your products are. Also when they are unpacked and repacked further down the chain.
By adopting the CRISTAL good practices for traceability, your supply chain becomes more agile. It allows for total quality management, reducing human errors, countering product obsolescence during distribution, reducing needed stocks etc. And if something does go wrong, recalls, relabelling and withdrawals become easier, reducing production and labour costs.
Full traceability also helps farmers to only use registered crop protection products. This is vital to produce safe and healthy food. By eliminating counterfeited products, we safeguard the reputation of the agro-industry but more importantly, we ensure that crops are safe and healthy for the consumer.
Compliant digital identification throughout the logistics chain: how does it work?
Efficient traceability starts with a compliant and digital identification, establishing the foundation for an entire secured track-and-trace process. Serialisation is an interesting option for reinforcing visibility throughout the supply chain and combating counterfeiting or parallel markets. It then enables aggregation, creating a hierarchy between serialised content and container.
For each event along the logistics chain, the identifiers are scanned to update their status in the shared information system in real-time.
The CRISTAL standards for identification and serialisation are based on the international GS1 standards to enable bidirectional communication with all actors in the supply chain. The unit identifiers should be both machine readable and human readable for smooth processing.
“In CRISTAL, serialisation is currently being suggested as the best method to ensure traceability at the finest granular level (consumer unit level). However, some countries, such as Turkey and Australia, have already imposed the serialisation of imported phytosanitary products. They are the pioneers of more stringent requirements that put agrobusiness companies under high pressure to comply with legal regulations. That is why investing now in scalable solutions for enhanced traceability, like Adama, Corteva and Phyteurop already did, is a guarantee for a future-proof supply chain.” Jean-Pierre Mouly, Business Consultant, Zetes
Scalable future-proof traceability solutions
In conclusion, a connected and responsive supply chain has become a must. However, not all logistics partners have the software and hardware, nor the budget, to comply fully with the CRISTAL standards. Luckily, it is also possible to progress towards further CRISTAL integration step-by-step.
CRISTAL is advising to master identification and traceability of batches and aggregation bonds, and potentially extending this capability to serialised unit products. Efficient solutions exist to comply with these standards and traceability regulations, e.g. secure and controlled product, box and pallet identification on packaging lines, end-to-end traceability in real-time all along the supply chain…
The real-time info on the whereabouts of your products is also used to optimise inventory and performances. The digital link between all your logistics partners allows for synchronised collaboration, traceability and regulatory compliance.
Scalable and cost-effective approaches aim to extend the functionality of your current systems, so that no major and expensive overhauls are required. Our advice: think big, but start small, and scale up as your needs change.