Support is growing for a new way in Produce Compliance

I should like to thank those of you who took the time to comment (through LinkedIn and email) to my recent post on ‘How AI can show produce a new way’.

I should say that the overriding sentiment was that there needs to be a sea-change in how UK produce is procured by the major UK off-takers (big brands and supermarkets). Many of the comments suggested that there needs to be a more flexible commercial approach, while others complained that specifications were too demanding compared to their European counterparts.

I, personally, do not feel that these have changed that much in the last 25 years. What has changed is the UK’s position as the priority market in the region. 25 years ago, suppliers and growers would have taken the temporary losses on the chin as they knew they would be more than compensated in the remainder of the season.

This, for the reasons that we outlined, namely devaluing pound, loss-making logistics and disproportionate compliance burden, means that we have slid down the rankings to the land of empty shelves.

I also received many comments on LinkedIn surrounding the need for change in the approach to compliance in the produce industry. Many saw AI as not only being a vehicle for that change but also encapsulating other areas such as sustainability. The fairly unanimous view though was that the current burden of unnecessary compliance on the industry was not only ineffective at rooting out supply chain misdemeanours but also was a central factor in the empty shelves. This would not have happened 25 years ago.

We are seeing that supply chain fraud is reappearing in other industries as companies are desperately trying to cut corners to combat spiralling costs. A retail salmon supplier is being investigated for fraud around country-of-origin claims.

In a similar vein, a pork supplier to retailers is also being investigated by the National Food Crime Unit for a similar fraud.

Many of my feed-backers opined that auditing was not particularly effective in preventing supply chain fraud. It is worth mentioning that both of these operations under investigation had been certified as being compliant with the British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) Global Standard for Food Safety. It tends to support their view.

So, why mention these in an article about empty produce shelves?

I remember when the horse-gate scandal (relating to burgers and processed meat) blew up just over 10 years ago. The fallout from that hit the produce industry nearly as hard as the meat industry, in that the same additional audits and compliance checks were imposed on our industry. There was little sign of a pragmatic approach to risk management being applied to produce supply chains back then.

Now we read with a degree of concern that Therese Coffey, the secretary of state for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (with special responsibilities for turnip marketing), in the wake of these incidents, is looking at bringing the Food Standards Agency under her department’s control.

If this happens, the fresh food industry can expect a ratcheting up of compliance requirements in a similarly knee-jerk way to the wake of the horse-gate affair. Suppliers are going to have to work even harder to meet these requirements.

In general, the fresh food industry, and in particular the produce industry does not need to work harder at supply chain compliance, it needs to work smarter.

It is possible to devise a standard that is based on provenance and transparency rather than prescribed controls that are aimed at the higher risk food industry with a differing hazard set. Artificial intelligence, in conjunction with a well-designed product testing programme can achieve a much higher hit rate for identifying supply chain fraud than any routine audits. At the same time, it can mitigate the need for resources to root out this corruption.

I believe that industry bodies such as the Fresh Produce Consortium can facilitate supply chain collaboration to pull together systems and processes that provide higher levels of transparency for their off-takers while, at the same time, simplifying the compliance complexity.