Essay on Evolution of Food Traceability Amidst Covid-19: Regulations, Tech Shifts, and Consumer Expectations

Before the outbreak of the current global pandemic Covid-19 and the ensuing supply challenges, 2020 was considered one of the financial years where most people in and around the world saw opportunities and even success in food safety security. All this happened and shone the light on the various departments, such as the emerging technologies and the presumed future of the New Era of Smarter Food Safety and blueprints from the U.S. (Wang et al., 2015). Various departments in the U.S., such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have taken charge and gotten prepared to execute actions. Many companies have understood the dynamics of business and the structures therein. The majority of businesses consider doing their food tracing and thus help the customers know all they need to know regarding the products' sources.

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Just as the developments progress, the consumers continue to exert more pressure on supply chain practices, calling for safer foods and information and data as evidence to help in marketing ideologies such as organic products, locally sourced and clean. These were some of the metrics that were assumed to increase in status as consumers, exhausted in regards to the current pandemic crisis, could grow and become more interested in openness and building of trust with the brands that they expected to ferry them through the trying times. The same idea that many retailers would be interested in making more information available is building trust. The year that was presumed to be full of hope in many industries and the very year that ushered in a new decade has transformed many lives and already feels like a halt or eye-opener to the food supply channels. To have a comprehensive understanding of the food traceability changes, we can consider looking into the regulatory activities, technology impacts, and consumer centricity in the coming years and show the opportunities that lie in every food safety professional to ensure they create an impact in the industry. Regulatory Activity: The New Era of Smarter Food Safety and FSMA

FDA's initiated a vast plan referred to as the New Era of Smarter Food Safety was launched last year in spring (Wang et al., 2015). All the efforts were inclined and signified renewed energy, especially on the traceability of food that created impacts to several people who commented from several comments that were supportive from the very many food industry organizations before there was a closure of the comment period. All that outlined a modern approach that created a better platform in the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in 2011 while also accounting for the changes that have taken place since then (Wang et al., 2015).

Technology Impact

Blockchain has significant support for food projections' safety and can play a very substantial role in coming up with more stringent measures in the chains of supply to draw trust from the end consumers (Aung, & Chang, 2014). The use of blockchains is related and inclined to more accountability in the supply chain, which is through the creation of an immutable ledger or a trail of audits from products, events, and even transactions; the majority of the industry workers and leaders were more inclined and strategically oriented in planning on the usage of blockchain before Covid-19 manifested before learning from pilot programs over two years. The supply management chain use cases had to undergo measurements for the criticalities involved in the roles of blockchain to address a particular challenge (Aung, & Chang, 2014). Many users were overwhelmed by questions about whether the blockchain gave something better than whatever is used in the current day. Some would say there is an improvement, while others would be hesitant in that regard. Blockchain programs have surfaced data quality problems and inconsistencies that require to be addressed. As a matter of fact, in a recently concluded study conducted by Gartner from 2020 through 2022, more than 80% of the supply chains will remain a blockchain initiative and thus a pilot stage instead of developing into wide-ranging claims. From the researchers, it is even clear that many supply chain use cases still depend on events that have been bypassed by time, and others still find their places in the analog world. Similar events and data are happening in and across physical products, packaging, and even transportation and logistics assets.

Consumer-Centricity: Closing the Gap

In a recent study, Deloitte realized that there had been an increased buying of new food categories for two years, which has accounted for more than 60% of expenditure on the products. Other research from the Center for food integrity realized that a significant number of consumers, roughly 65%, wish to know more about where the food products came from (Narsimhalu et al., 2015). Just as consumers continue to diversify their eating habits, it becomes an integral part of society for suppliers and retailers to serve clients with reliable information, which would offer peace of mind. By prioritizing food traceability, various food industries can work in conjunction to close these gaps. The gaps are between consumers' demands for healthy food products and the industry's ability to meet those demands with an assurance of safety (Narsimhalu et al., 2015). There has been interest in looking for collaborations between the traders and the partners to more identifiable locations where products were harvested and produced in the years ahead. This, in return, helps the involved parties to complete the full picture of traceability for consumers. A more essential data that would create an impact and address efficiencies would be the Global Location Number, which is uniquely identified as a company's physical location that is traceable. The unique numbers can be globally accepted by partners and happen to be a crucial part of traceability programs. They will give room for more precise tracing and sharing of supply chain events.

A significant number of the challenges could be addressed by putting considerations on the following key drivers of change, which would ensure proper navigation of the food industry through a progressively unsettling year (Narsimhalu et al., 2015). Now, these plans call for a continued collaboration between supply chain partners, which is critical in fueling the journey.

The major driving forces are:

• Trace contamination
• Price Decrease
• Legislative structures
• Certification and standardization
• Support product recall
• Increasing customer concern in support of food security

The straining factors include:

• Extra charges when conducting food and food product tracing
• Data Sharing
• Strict laws especially in developing countries
• Different products from different suppliers.

Hypothesis 1:

Food traceability is a determining factor in the choice of a supplier.

The answer could be a yes or a no. For a genuine retailer, especially one who would be contacted to trace back the products' source, it would be essential to ensure the supplier is reliable. In a case where contamination of food would occur, the retailer can track back the source of the products and have a comprehensive way of calling back the products to the company. Some retailers would be money-hungry, and thus, the supplier's knowledge and information on suppliers' choices would never be a factor to consider. The end-users of products are more likely than not going to relate more with the retailers other than the suppliers. Still, again if the clients persist on their desire to know the source of the products, this would help the retailers choose the ideal supplier who would bring products from where the customers would wish to have their products come from.

Hypothesis 2:

New tools must be developed to avoid breaks in traceability.

New tools developed to avoid traceability breaks are essential, but they should not be imposed on stakeholders who still find the old models efficient and effective. Traceability involves the use of various models. Whatever works for one product cannot work for another, and thus the demands of traceability ought to be handled at an individual product level.

Hypothesis 3:

The health crisis reinforces the regulatory and normative framework for food traceability. (It could be related to the production)

As discussed above, health conditions will always impact food handling and even their safety. When there is a health issue which is the case with Covid-19, the FDA understands that the virus can be passed from one person to the other through food handling procedures. The workers in the industries and farms ought to be protected not to spread the infections to the consumers. The health problems now call for thoroughly done research to serve the consumers without compromising their health and financial status.

Hypothesis 4:

The different sectors of the food industry are not affected in the same way by the health crisis. (It could be related to transportation)

A health crisis will impact people differently, but again, it is worth understanding that all food industries are affected economically when GDP is affected. Even the food producers will more likely than not be afraid to invest in agriculture or even food processing in fear of losses. Some people even end up losing their lives. COVID-19 has not been any different people have passed on, which has affected many stakeholders within the society.

References

Aung, M. M., & Chang, Y. S. (2014). Traceability in a food supply chain: Safety and quality perspectives. Food control, 39, 172-184.

Narsimhalu, U., Potdar, V., & Kaur, A. (2015). A case study to explore the influence of traceability factors on Australian food supply chain performance. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 189, 17-32.

Wang, J., Chen, T., & Wang, J. (2015). Research on cooperation strategy of enterprises’ quality and safety in the food supply chain. Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society, 2015.