We’ve Come a Long Way Together

Almost 15 years ago, when we started TraceGains , there was tremendous pain and frustration among thousands of food and beverage supply chain companies trying to communicate and send critical information to each other – each one operating a bit like a lonely island. As a result, the ingredient supply chain was – and remains – scattered, disconnected, and fragmented.

Today, in a shifting global supply chain, we’re reminded of this fragility and the importance of collaboration, which is why we decided to call this year’s annual customer event: Together.

For those who couldn’t join us, I’d love to share a few highlights of my keynote presentation. And please feel free to peruse all the other recorded sessions of Together here.

Be sure to tune into the panels that featured many of our customers who are actively using TraceGains to streamline their supply chains, such as MegaFood, LiDestri Food and Drink, Camerican International, and more.

Their stories truly impress me, and I still marvel at how our customers have shown creativity and flexibility with everything from product formulations to ingredient sourcing as they manage supply disruption and cost shifts on TraceGains Networked Ingredients Marketplace.

Since the inception of TraceGains, our customers have been our inspiration. And that started with our first engineering decision to take a page from social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook when we started building our network. Just like business colleagues or friends who connect and share photos and other information automatically via social media, we saw the need for a network where CPG brands could connect with suppliers instantly to share information. To make this happen seamlessly, we engineered standards for data like allergens and nutrition and built new collaboration solutions.

Today, we continue adding more than 1,000 new ingredients and items weekly on the network and boast nearly 1 million digitized forms?customers can use for new product development, automated risk scoring of suppliers and items, and more.

We’ve also just opened access to our Networked Ingredients Marketplace with a free version of our product called TraceGains Gather? for individual users working at companies that might not use TraceGains – yet. Gather is our way of investing back into our community with access to more than 425,000 ingredients and items. It even includes Networked Intelligence, the world’s most advanced horizon scanning for touch-free monitoring of ingredients and supplier partners you depend on. When something happens in the world, our customers will know about it automatically. For those with data integrated with our enterprise product suite, this provides the ability to quickly identify impacted formulations, sub-recipes or co-manufacturers, and create configurable and shareable watchlists to let teams stay informed and in sync.

Earlier this year we also launched Networked Finished Goods, a way to manage the most important and complex network of relationships between brands, co-mans, co-packers, suppliers and, ultimately, retailers. Networked Finished Goods helps brands crack the code on contract manufacturing and packing, making it easier to manage the full chain of documents and data that must flow through these partnerships. CPG brands can now associate co-man and co-packing partners (and all their documentation) with not only the finished goods they produce, but with all the component ingredients moving through the supply chain. No matter who assumes responsibility for sourcing, we can help you organize the complete chain of critical documentation and make it easy to share. Better yet, we can integrate all that data seamlessly with our New Product Development (NPD) suite, bringing specifications and formulas into the solution.

Finally, in the spirit of working together, we launched Workspaces, a command-and-control center for organizing and sharing documents, data, Marketplace items, Intelligence watchlists and more. With Workspaces, collaboration between groups like R&D, quality, regulatory, sales, customer service, and procurement happen organically and instantly. You can also create external Workspaces, where brands can securely invite suppliers and business partners like co-mans or consultants to join for collaboration on specific products or projects. ?

In the interest of helping our global customer base, it's also worth highlighting the global expansion of our network. This year, we expanded beyond North America to invest in resources across the UK, Europe and Latin America, bringing the power of our Networked Ingredients Marketplace to more food and beverage companies worldwide.?

We made a lot of progress this year, and we’re excited about what we have planned for 2023. Of course, disruptions will always rattle the supply chain. Next year, we’ll continue pushing the boundaries of our Networked Ingredients Marketplace to enable good business stewardship on matters such as ESG. We know TraceGains can’t solve climate change. Still, we offer a powerful suite of tools to buffer ingredient agility issues and build a better global supply chain.

We look forward to working with each of you to meet the challenges of the future. Again, thank you for working with TraceGains on this exciting journey, and best wishes for a happy holiday season!