Food traceability, authenticity and consumer engagement

These days consumers have greater expectations in the area of safety and quality when it comes to food. For the producer, this means developing brands and innovating to give more value with consumer engagement. It also means maintaining more control and care of the supply chain which helps to protect a brand. Result Group recognises that with the rapid developments in digital technology, packaging is uniquely positioned to provide an informative and engaging product experience for the user. As a result, we have partnered with EVRYTHNG, the Product Cloud managing digital identities for the world’s consumer products to accelerate the digitisation of products in Australia.

The EVRYTHNG Product Cloud links every product item to its Active Digital Identity on the web — joining up item-level data at every point in a product’s journey from manufacturing to consumer interaction. Digitised products provide visibility, validation and real-time intelligence as well as connect directly with people.

To bring the massive impact of product digitisation to the forefront, EVRYTHNG co-chaired the GS1 standards development process that yielded GS1 Digital Link and was the first platform to allow consumer product brands to digitise products at scale. GS1 Digital Link upgrades the ubiquitous barcode used by two million manufacturers on more than 4-trillion product items per annum, so that every product item can now be smartphone-interactive, transact with point-of-sale systems and connect to the web — all with one code on the product.

For example, the world’s largest producer of Atlantic salmon, MOWI and EVRYTHNG rolled out the first mass-scale application of the new GS1 Digital Link standard. The end-to-end food traceability platform delivers full visibility into the provenance of salmon bought and consumed by customers worldwide. In a world where trust is a defining commodity, the level of transparency MOWI has achieved will fast become the new normal for every consumer product.

Mowi case study — the first and largest scale roll-out of GS1 Digital Link

The challenge

Consumers want to understand how the food they consume is produced. For salmon, this means knowing where and how the salmon is cared for, farmed, harvested and transported. But with salmon raised across multiple locations and data collected in different production and supply chain systems, creating a single, searchable source of truth and making it easily accessible to consumers was a significant data management challenge. Mowi is incredibly proud of the premium quality of its product: how it cares for, farms and prepares its salmon. It wanted a super simple way to share this information so consumers could make informed decisions about what they’re purchasing and eating.

The solution

EVRYTHNG collects data from different production and supply chain systems used by Mowi and harmonises it so that every single salmon produced has one searchable source of truth. This includes detailed information such as, when the egg was hatched, in which freshwater facility it was raised, what food the salmon was fed, when and where the fish were harvested, the size, age and weight of the fish and the data is grouped at batch level, which allows granular traceability back into the supply chain for quality control purposes.

Connected product packaging

On each item’s packaging, there is a consumer scannable QR code that uses the new global standard, GS1 Digital Link. This code connects to the item’s digital identity in the EVRYTHNG platform, revealing all of the batch-level information captured through the full lifecycle of the salmon.

Consumer experience

Any consumer can scan the package at point of sale or post-purchase to discover all about the salmon. All the traceability data is then presented on the user’s smartphone.

Analytics

Every scan is captured, whether in store or at the consumer’s home. Anonymised consumer engagement data is collected and provided to Mowi via intuitive web-based dashboards, giving instant visibility to products in market.

Benefits

Mowi is aiming to differentiate its product in the eyes of consumers by highlighting its superior quality while giving consumers the transparency they crave. By forging a digital connection with consumers, Mowi aims to build trust and ultimately grow sales.

Mowi intends to capture valuable insights from widespread consumer engagement, where previously it had no visibility. By understanding where, when and how consumers are engaging, Mowi will gain greater insight into what consumers want and use that knowledge to inform future marketing programs.

Consumers care more about transparency than ever before.

In 2016, 39% of shoppers said they would switch to brands that offered more complete information. In 2018, 75% said they would switch, a 93% increase.

Some 84% of consumers check where their food has come from either “all”, “most” or “some” of the time.

The EVRYTHNG product uses the new product-coding GS1 Digital Link, which simplifies the way products can be tracked and interacted with through their lifecycle and ensures compatibility with existing supply chain processes. EVRYTHNG has implemented end-to-end traceability solutions for numerous brands in the Food & Beverages sector, so we could help your brand get to market faster and with lower risk than many blockchain-based solutions, which are largely unproven and not built for a scale roll-out.

For more information on how smart packaging can work as a point of differentiation for new and established brands, call your trusted partner Result Group on 03 9706 4474 or email us.

Image courtesy of Result Group.