Fonterra's tracing technology makes problem-solving faster

Fonterra has spent tens of millions of dollars on lifting its traceability performance.

It took Fonterra five days to isolate the problem during the infamous whey protein concentrate scare of 2013. Now, the co-operative is on the way towards establishing full electronic traceability for all its products, which will mean problems can be isolated within just a few hours.

Initial tests showing the product - WPC80 - contained the botulism-causing bacteria turned out to be false, but the event and its resulting infant formula product recall was a big setback for Fonterra.

Traceability has become a big part of the world's food industry, to the point where big UK supermarket chain Tesco will not allow its shelves to be stocked by products whose ingredients can not be swiftly traced back to their source.

Fonterra aims to have electronic product traceability for all its products, in all its markets, by 2020.

By the end of this year 40 per cent of its plants globally will have traceability data electronically connected, and a further 50 per cent the plants will be included by the end of 2017. The remaining 10 per cent will be completed in 2018/19.

It has been a big undertaking, costing the company tens of millions of dollars, but Fonterra's general manager trust in source, Tim Kirk, said it had been an essential investment in the future.

"If you go back to the WPC80 incident - that took us four or five days to get that information together to be able to communicate it," he said. "The tool that we are deploying - the global repository - allows us to do that with within a three-hour window," Kirk told the Herald.

"It is a significant step-change."

Fonterra has in the past been able to trace products but through an array of systems involving a mix of electronic information as well as manual logs and spreadsheets.

"What we are aiming for now is world-class electronic product traceability, so if we have any concerns about any product we can electronically trace it anywhere in our supply chain within three hours," he said.

He says that with Fonterra collecting more than 22 billion litres of liquid milk equivalent from 10,500 farmers and operating 34 sites in New Zealand alone, the scale of the job has been significant.

In addition to the major upgrade, Fonterra is strengthening its systems to safeguard customers and consumers using product authentication, tamper-evident packaging and anti-counterfeiting technology.

The company has tamper-evident seals on packaging to all its Anmum branded products in New Zealand and Indonesia, giving consumers a visible indication of product tampering that could occur post-packing. It is also rolling out QR codes for Anmum, which consumers can read through a smart phone.

The code, which is unique for every can or retail carton of the product connects consumers through a mobile phone app to a webpage with information which verifies the authenticity of the product and its batch number It also uses light activated technology to code the product, making it harder to damage the code. The codes will be progressively introduced from next year.

Kirk said few New Zealand consumers use QR codes - which can be read by a smart phone - to establish the credentials of their food purchases, but in its key market of China, the practice is widespread. The codes be progressively introduced from next year.