Matthews to launch fresh produce barcoding solution

Around 18 months ago, Matthews began working collaboratively with Woolworths Group Supply Chain and GS1 Australia to identify supply-chain points for improvement and resolve coding and labelling errors for fresh produce. The company used its non-proprietary software to develop iDSnet Cloud, a simple-to-use, cloud-based printing tool that generates and prints carton, crate and SSCC labels. It is now launching the solution for Australia’s fresh produce sector at Hort Connections in Brisbane from 7–9 June 2021.

Mark Dingley, Matthews CEO, said the company was proud of the new launch and said importantly, the iDSnet Cloud software is free.

“SSCC & GTIN barcoding into DCs is the number one non-compliance issue today for the major retailers. This is extremely costly to Australian industry, so we made the decision to make iDSnet Cloud an industry-wide carton and pallet barcode label printing software solution for free.

“Through its Modern Manufacturing Initiative grants, the Australian Government is targeting to double the size of the food and grocery manufacturing sector by 2030. This means it’s even more important for the sector to get coding and labelling correct.”

Mark Dingley said the solution had been specifically designed for fresh produce manufacturers supplying into Woolworths, with the retailer’s new tray and carton label format supported along with SSCC Pallet labelling.

“However, we realised what iDSnet Cloud could achieve was so important, that any Australian manufacturer will be able to use the tool online for free for standard carton GTIN and SSCC pallet barcoding requirements.

“iDSnet already manages coding and labelling across more than 1000 production lines throughout Australia and the Asia–Pacific region; from what we’re seeing, the government’s and industry targets for Australia’s fresh produce sector to improve traceability are driving demand for Australian-made package code management software.”

For more details about the software, visit: https://www.matthews.com.au/idsnet-cloud.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Irina Sokolovskaya