Remote ingredient supply chain surveillance gains ground

As we have witnessed during the pandemic, a crisis offers the chance to focus all our innovation and creativity toward a very real problem. The problems are staring you in the face, and we do a much better job about picking solutions.

The food & beverage industry has had no shortage of issues to tackle in this regard. Look no further than foodservice to see the tragic, lasting damage continued lockdowns are doing. However, necessity is sometimes the mother of invention, and in the world of safety & compliance, we have had the unique challenge of maintaining good governance and oversight with the ongoing absence of physical audits.

Positive disruption ​

This is not as simple as it sounds, for an industry that has largely relied on annual third-party audits. But perhaps the pandemic has accelerated change and allowed disruptive solutions to fill the void?

If an alien landed on earth tomorrow and you asked them to build a system of surveillance and compliance, they would not start by giving a human a clipboard and standing them in a field or factory. However, that is still largely where we are, and although a clipboard has probably been exchanged for an i-Pad these days, the framework has remained largely unchanged for decades.

Emerging technologies such as blockchain and supply chain mapping have come to the fore, but most forms of surveillance still rely on audit for evidence gathering, focused on suppliers and facilities or financial tracking … But should the greater focus not be the product itself?