From Farm to Fork
The importance of food traceability and decoding why today's consumer is asking for more information on what he or she is consuming
A lot of Indian companies these days are promoting their brands through the strategy of farm to fork i.e. they are directly responsible for sourcing your food from farms to your houses. Some of the prominent names in this league include BigBasket, RelianceFresh, Sahyadri Farms who have been building their value chains on this concept only and have been getting great response from their customers. This is because today’s customer like you and me is more aware and wants to be sure that what he/she is consuming is healthy, fresh, and maybe vegan. But what has suddenly made this concept so important for the companies and consumers both?
To answer this question, let us go back a few years. Thence the food delivery supply chain had too many complex steps and multiple intermediary levels like laborer’s, transporters, mandis, stockist etc. These lead to the supply chain of food commodities develop into a maze like structure and food traceability becoming a big challenge further developing an insecurity among the Indian populace about what they are paying and purchasing is right or not? And when customer is unsure about something, it definitely is an opportunity for industry to innovate something bridging that gap. So, this gave rise to a new concept of “one-step-back and one-stage-forward principle” in the food distribution system.
This backward and forward principle is a tracking mechanism that enables to trace the movement of food through various stages like production, processing, and distribution. It is an empowering solution for the seller companies and the food safety authorities together to eliminate unsafe food produce along with preventing food spoilage. But, the maximum benefit of this backward and forward principle has been to the end customer like you and me with the the primary advantage being ensuring of food safety. This is basically achieved by recording information of the produce at each stage of the supply chain and no doubt that technology has been a key enabler to enforce this revolutionary mechanism.
Disruptive innovations like barcode systems and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology have played a pivotal role in ease of tracing of food commodities in the complex food supply chains. These technologies help in real-time tracking of food items in transit such as the location of items, quality of items, as well as security of those items. And when such degree of details are available, it automatically boosts the buyer confidence along with strengthening the brand image of the supplier.
Another big achievement of food traceability has been increase in trust of the customers resulting in improved consumer satisfaction. This has been made possible because of additional information today being available for the food produce in the form of production and handling methodologies which was earlier limited to conventional labels giving mundane information and therefore making a consumer more informed and specific about the food he or she is eating.
Hence, there isn’t any denying that the advent of food traceability has brought in more transparency and efficiency to the complex food supply chains. When data is being termed as the new oil, it was imperative to constructively pump data in the food distribution systems as well for bettering its prospects; and without any doubt, today the customers can feel that the companies involved in this segment have exceeded their expectations by informing them about every bit they consume. Nonetheless, if you also feel that by consuming information through us you’re becoming smarter, then don’t forget to subscribe and spread our newsletter.
By: Anmol Gupta | Isha Garg