Coles labels for fresh produce requirements generate fresh produce labels that comply with Coles fresh produce labelling requirements. Manage inventory and your entire fresh produce operations including quality control and sales.
This webinar will provide an understanding of how Coles inspects products upon delivery into their Fresh Produce and Chilled Distribution Centre’s (DC) and how a supplier can help stock flow freely through the network. Australia's supermarket industry has formed a task force to fix a shortage of delivery pallets that could impact availability of some goods, another knot in the global supply chain that is putting the brakes on economic recovery from the pandemic.
Woolworths Group Ltd (WOW.AX) and Coles Group Ltd (COL.AX), the top two grocers, joined pallet makers and smaller chains to address a scarcity of the wooden crates resulting from COVID-19 lockdowns and timber shortages, said the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC), which is running the project.
Pallets join a growing list of products suffering raw material shortages. Consumer goods manufacturers and retailers have also flagged short supplies of plastics and other packaging material such as cans and glass, while a lack of computer chips is hurting carmakers around the world.
Though the two grocers said they would avoid empty shelves in the end-of-year holiday period, the coordinated measure shows how a mix of unusual factors stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic has put strain on the A$120 billion ($90 billion) industry.
Without pallets, manufacturers cannot ship goods into warehouses, potentially leading to production stoppages and fewer goods for sale. There are signs that some businesses are hanging on to pallets rather than recycling them.
Brambles Ltd (BXB.AX), one of the world's largest pallet providers, said earlier this year that labor and transportation constraints, coupled with restricted access to manufacturing sites due to COVID, were deterring some manufacturers and retailers from returning pallets.
Robust housing construction and renovation markets, particularly in the United States, have also sapped lumber supplies and driven up prices.
PALLET GATE
Earlier this month, Corona beer maker Constellation Brands said increased raw material costs in the third quarter were predominantly driven by pallets, cartons and aluminum.
Coca-Cola (KO.N) said on Wednesday it was facing "tight" supplies of cans, while its rival Pepsico (PEP.O) flagged difficulties in securing bottles for its Gatorade sports drink. read more
"Across the nation there is a bit of a 'pallet-gate' going on," said Coles Chief Executive Steven Cain on an earnings call. "The lack of wood means not many new ones are being produced."
A Woolworths spokesman said the company was working with suppliers to "help them get access to pallets and minimise any impacts within their distribution networks".
At an earnings call a day earlier, Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci said his company, which together with Coles accounts for two-thirds of Australian supermarket sales, may have to swap out some brands of certain items due to supply problems, although it would not drop entire product categories.
"They're probably feeling this bullwhip effect, where there's a shock in one node of the supply chain and that causes amplified reactions in every other node," said Shanaka Jayasinghe, director of GRA Supply Chain, a logistics consulting firm.
In this webinar, Jonathan covered:
Coles Quality Team & Coverage
Coles Delivery Requirements
Cold Chain Compliance
Quality Inspections
Available Data/Reporting
Grocery Code Requirements
Q&A
About The Presenter:
Jonathan has been with Coles for 9 years, leading the quality team for the past 5 years and prior to that leading the Bakery technical team. Prior to moving to Coles Jonathan worked for Tesco in the UK managing private label launches into central Europe and beyond as part of the Tesco Group Food Sourcing team.
Coles labels for fresh produce requirements generate fresh produce labels that comply with Coles fresh produce labelling requirements. Manage inventory and your entire fresh produce operations including quality control and sales.
Coles Group is one of Australia's largest retailers, with over 2,500 supermarkets, liquor and convenience stores across the country serving 21 million customers weekly. The company was founded in Victoria in 1914 and was owned by Australian conglomerate Wesfarmers between 2007-18, when it was spun off and listed as an independent company. Coles works predominantly with domestic suppliers, with 100% of its own brand lamb, pork, chicken, milk and egg products sourced in Australia.
Summary
Ranking 12th in the Food and Agriculture Benchmark, Coles Group demonstrates that it has processes for developing its sustainability strategy and stakeholder engagement. The company also has board-level accountability for sustainable development, with inclusion of sustainability topics in the remuneration policy of board members. Coles Group shows commitment to multiple topics across the environment measurement area by setting time-bound targets related to its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, food loss and waste and animal welfare for certain species. Similarly, it also reports on nutrition issues such as promoting the availability of healthy food, and clear and transparent labelling of its products. Regarding social inclusion, Coles Group discloses evidence of activities supporting farmer productivity and respecting land rights. While the company discloses requirements to eliminate child and forced labour, it has an opportunity to further strengthen its reporting.
Coles labels for fresh produce requirements generate fresh produce labels that comply with Coles fresh produce labelling requirements. Manage inventory and your entire fresh produce operations including quality control and sales. Supermarket giant Coles has committed to
a safer environment for workers in fresh produce and meat supply chains in a new agreement with transport, retail and farm unions.
Coles will work with the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU), the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) to address worker exploitation and healthy and safety risks in the fresh food industry, while promoting better transparency and end-to-end compliance within its supply chains.
“Worker exploitation in any part of the Australian fresh food supply chain is not acceptable,” TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said.
“Underpayment of wages and superannuation and unsafe working conditions must be addressed. Coles has been working with the TWU to ensure safety and fairness in road transport and it has shown its commitment to continue to work with its supply chains to ensure that all workers are treated in accordance with Australian workplace legislation.”
Workers in retail stores and retail warehouses are currently protected under union negotiated Enterprise Agreements. These unions wish to ensure all workers in the fresh food industry are aware of theses rights and have the power to exercise them.
Coles head of quality and responsible sourcing, James Whittaker said the supermarket has made significant progress in the past 10 years on its Ethical Sourcing journey, and is looking forward to working with these unions.
“Coles is committed to the safety and fair treatment of all the workers in our supply chains, as per our Ethical Sourcing Policy and Supplier Requirements. Our local Australian suppliers and workers are critical to the provision of fresh, quality produce and meat to our customers,” Whittaker said.
A Fair Work Ombudsman inquiry last year, in which more than A$1 million was recovered in unpaid wages for over 2,500 workers, highlighted the need for compliance and accountability across the fresh produce and meat processing supply chains.
upermarket Compliance Requirements
A large proportion of Australian packaged food and beverages are sold via major supermarket chains like Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, Costco, IGA etc. Product inspection is a key component of ensuring quality in your manufacturing facility, one you shouldn’t trust to just anyone. Contact A&D today.
Safety Matters – in food production
From raw ingredients to the store shelves, product inspection is a key component of ensuring quality in our food products. Consumers expect high-quality, safe food free from contaminants and impurities.
A large proportion of Australian packaged food and beverages are sold via major supermarket chains like Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, Costco, IGA and others.
Most of the major retail chains have strict QA standards that their manufacturers / suppliers are required to meet, and they perform regular audits against these standards.
Contractual QA obligations have become even more stringent when products are branded as the supermarket’s own label which is understandable, as it is now their name and reputation in the consumer spotlight.
Whilst there can be subtle differences from one supermarket to another, most these QA systems are based on long-established and globally recognised BRC (British Retail Consortium) standards for food manufacturers. They are obviously very detailed and cover far more than just Product Inspection, but when it comes to checkweighing, metal detection and X-Ray Inspection, there are specific guidelines that have to be followed.
The team at A&D are fully versed in these requirements and our Inspection Systems and product rejection/quarantine options are designed not just to meet, but exceed these requirements. Other quality management systems follow guidelines set by programs such as HACCP and more locally HARPS, which is more specifically aimed at fresh produce/horticulture processing & packing sector.
Fail-Safe mechanisms
“Fail-Safe” is a common term that gets discussed when designing a supermarket compliant inspection & reject system, and primarily revolves around ensuring that a non-compliant product is confirmed as “rejected” and more importantly, if it is somehow missed by the reject system, that a secondary alarm/action is triggered.
These fail-safe mechanisms take several forms but common ones are “air pressure monitoring, reject bin full alarm, and rejection confirmation. Chat to the A&D Inspection team about specific requirements to suit your pack formats and speeds.
Supermarket Compliance
Decoding the rules for fresh produce in Australia (Part 1)
Confused about labelling rules for fresh produce? What’s mandatory? What’s not? What do retailers want? Here’s what Australian fresh produce suppliers need to know.
Farming and agriculture remain vitally important to Australia’s economy, contributing almost $50 billion a year to our bottom line. But times are changing. Consumers are increasingly interested in what they’re eating and are looking to food labels for answers. New food labelling and coding regulations are being introduced to provide more transparency. Industry standards are constantly evolving. And to add to all that: major supermarkets, processors and distributors are insisting that Australian fresh fruit and vegetable suppliers implement their own labelling and coding rules.
Finding it tough to keep up? You’re not alone.
To help, below we answer your top questions about labelling rules for fresh produce…
With constantly evolving packaging demands and trends, Australian food & beverage manufacturers must stay alert. In this guide we’ve rounded up real-life examples to reveal 7 valuable lessons in labelling & coding. DOWNLOAD NOW
Why do we need fresh produce labels?
There are lots of reasons, but top of the list is transparency. Australian consumers want to know what’s in their food and where it comes from – and that includes fresh produce. They are increasingly looking to food labels for the answers: use-by dates, ingredients, allergen information, instructions for storage and preparation, advisory and warning statements, country of origin … the list goes on.
It’s not only the consumers who need this information; retailers and wholesalers need answers too. In Australia, it’s estimated that between 50-60% of supermarket sales are perishable items, with a loss of 5-7% as a result of poor inventory management (Planet Retail – Food Waste report). The right labelling helps better and faster turnaround of stock, improved stock accuracy and improved tracking of product recalls and withdrawals. So, for any fresh produce suppliers who value longer-term relationships with their customers – and that’s probably every producer in Australia – labelling and coding compliance is a must.
Who makes the rules?
Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) sets the standards for what information must be on food labels in the Food Standards Code, which documents legal requirements for additives, nutrition, storage, labelling, and GM foods. Local state and territory agencies (such as the New South Wales Food Authority) enforce the rules.
The rules for labelling and coding fresh produce in Australia
The good news is that fresh produce is mostly exempt from the full labelling requirements, so long as it is:
not in packaging
whole or cut fresh fruit and vegetables in packaging that does not obscure the nature or quality
However, there may still be certain information that needs to be displayed in connection with the food or provided to the purchaser on request.
The rules that DO apply to fresh produce are:
Rule 1: Country of Origin
Two years in the making, new country-of-origin food labelling laws came into full effect in July 2018. These labels clearly spell out the country or countries where the food was grown, manufactured or packaged. In other words, consumers can clearly see which foods are grown, produced or made in Australia.
As a Victorian grower told the ABC News, if shoppers can clearly see which produce is Australian, they would hopefully be inspired to buy more local food.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is in charge of enforcing the new laws, with penalties of up to $220,000 for an individual and $1.1 million for a corporation. Australian meat company Conroy’s was fined $10,200 in 2015 when it was found to have mislabelled Danish bacon as Australian.According to the ACCC, the bacon product was labelled as a “Product of Australia” when it was produced using imported pig meat.
Here’s a breakdown of the Country of Origin claims, according to ACCC:
Grown in – a claim about where the ingredients come from and is commonly used for fresh food. Can also be used for multi-ingredient products to show where the food was grown and processed.
Produced in – a claim about where the ingredients come from and where processing has occurred. Often used for processed, as well as fresh foods.
Made in – a claim about the manufacturing process involved in making the food.
Packed in – a claim where a food has not been grown, produced or made in a single country. The label identifies the country it was packed in.
Foods are classed as “non-priority foods” and “priority foods”. Fresh produce falls into the priority foodscategory.This meansyour product can only claim to be produced or grown in Australia if it contains 100% Australian ingredients.
If grown, produced or made in Australia, your priority food country-of-origin label will feature a kangarooin a triangle logo, and a bar chart and textidentifying the proportion of Australian content in the food.
The Australian Business website has a helpful video guide for more information on the new Country of Origin labelling.
Note: Food that was packaged and labelled on or before 30 June 2018 can still be sold without the new labels.
Rule 2: Nutritional Information
While the Food Standards Code requires all manufactured foods to have a nutrition information panel, fresh produce is exempt from this rule if it is:
packaged fresh fruits and vegetables
sold unpackaged
foods in small packages (less than 100cm squared)
However, if you are making a nutritional claim about the product (e.g.“good source of calcium”), a nutrition information panel must be provided. Watch this video for more information.
What do Australian retailers want?
In addition to meeting the Food Standards Code, fresh produce suppliers need to tick the boxes for their customers’ labelling requirements. Retailers such as Coles, Woolworths, IGA and Aldi have strict labelling regulations to keep their warehouse and supply chain working efficiently. Mostly, this comes down to labelling at a carton or crate level.
Take Coles. The Australian retailer launched significantly more vegetable items in 2017 than in 2015 to meet consumer demand. But it also asks suppliers to follow some stringent rules. To start with, all Coles Brand suppliers use its web-based product and supplier database, Fusion, which the company says “allows for product traceability and strict adherence to quality compliance standards such as declarable allergens, certifications and nutritional information”.
Coles asks its fresh produce suppliers to follow specific carton/crate labelling requirements whereby each “pickable entity” (crate, carton, bag, tray, bin) is individually labelled with product description, SKU code, unit of measure, vendor details, batch numbers and date codes (where applicable). And, of course, suppliers are reminded that each label must contain the mandatory country-of-origin information.
Many retailers request that GS1 Australia logistics labels are assigned to cartons and pallets. Even if they don’t, these labels are great practice to provide information in a way that can be easily understood by both machines and humans.
In Part 2, we delve into the different types of codes you need to know for fresh produce, including Databar, Date Codes, PLU, GTIN and SSCC. Don’t miss it!
How to get the right labels
Matthews can help you with your product label, carton label and compliant pallet label for fresh produce. Combining the latest label applicator and printer technologies with expertise, Matthews ensures your fresh produce always has the right information in the right place to comply with your trading partners and the legislation.
Interested to see how improving your supply chain efficiency can enhance your in beverage manufacturing business? Check out this overview of market issues, consumer trends and analysis of end-of-packaging-line challenges. DOWNLOAD NOW
Looking for highly informative casestudies, whitepapers and infographics for manufacturing? Or videos showing solutions in action and lots of detailed brochures? Find all that and more in Matthews’ large resource library. It also has presentations we’ve done to industry bodies and articles from our thought leaders. Plus, it’s all free to download!
Why Trust A&D with your Inspection?
Product inspection is a key component of ensuring quality in your manufacturing facility, one you shouldn’t trust to just anyone.
A&D is an established global company that has been a trusted provider of long-lasting and reliable measurement instrumentation for over 40 years.
A&D provides checkweighers and metal detectors suitable for direct food contact, meeting Australian food standards.
Our systems can handle the environment and are designed to deliver reliable and repeatable results, and they are commonly used throughout the food and beverage industry today.
Our intuitive software and user interface is easy to configure, making product changeover as simple as pressing a button.
Get an expert’s opinion on how you can improve your product inspection.
Useful Links
BRC standards – https://www.brcgs.com
HARPS standards – https://harpsonline.com.au
NMI AQS detailed information – https://www.industry.gov.au/data-and-publications/guide-to-the-average-quantity-system-in-australia/average-quantity-system
Supermarket Compliance
AQS (Average Quantity System)
Whilst not part of food safety/QA, most Australian food manufacturing companies would have heard of the “Average Quantity System” or AQS as its popular acronym. A&D checkweighers can be setup to run products under AQS which can be a little daunting to those that have never been introduced to the system.
We have listed a link below to the Australian Government (NMI) page detailing everything about AQS, including who/when/what type of manufacturing it can apply to, but if you want just a simple summary, here are the key points:
AQS Overview – AQS is designed to help packaged food producers to reduce the amount of overfill or “give away” on packaged items whilst maintaining consumer confidence that products meet legal minimum weight requirements as outlined by the Commonwealth Government’s National measurement Institute (NMI Australia). Consumers can immediately identify what products have been packed under AQS guidelines as the pack will be marked with an “e” symbol next to the weight.
AQS Rules – Three main rules apply to an AQS based manufacturing system:
The average net contents of a sample from a production run of pre-packed articles cannot be less than the stated quantity marked on the packaging.
Allowance is made for a small number of packs to exceed a tolerable deficiency (defined as “T1”)
No packs in the sample can have more than twice the prescribed tolerable deficiency (defined as “T2”)
If you want further information about how or if an A&D, AQS-based inspection system can add value to your business, the team at A&D Australasia can discuss more details with you.
Coles labels for fresh produce requirements generate fresh produce labels that comply with Coles fresh produce labelling requirements. Manage inventory and your entire fresh produce operations including quality control and sales. AS THE peak representative body for horticulture in Queensland, Growcom is pleased to welcome Coles’ official endorsement of the industry-led Fair Farms training and certification program
Coles last week confirmed it will be accepting Fair Farms certification as a way for fresh produce suppliers to demonstrate compliance with the Coles ethical sourcing policy.
The supermarket giant joins Woolworths and Aldi in accepting Fair Farms certification as a suitable method for Australian growers to meet ethical sourcing requirements.
This means growers can now adopt Fair Farms as the one and only standard they need to meet the ethical sourcing policies of all three retailers – making compliance easier, cheaper, and more effective.
The Fair Farms team is delighted to have Coles on board after they contributed to the original design of the Fair Farms standard alongside other retailers and stakeholders.
Their commitment to collaborate with industry on matters of ethical sourcing policy is great news for businesses in horticulture and their workers.
We expect many more farm businesses to adopt the Fair Farms standard as a result of this endorsement by Coles, leading to improved conditions for workers on farms across the country.
Along with the support of Australia’s retailers, the Fair Farms program has been designed with input from Australian farmers and offers local training support to participating farms.
It is built on the idea that compliant and ethical employers should be recognised and rewarded for their efforts by their customers and consumers, who may choose to buy Australian produce from ethically verified sources.
Are you an Australian grower looking to prove your compliance? Sign up as a supplier and start your pathway to Fair Farms certification today by visiting www.fairfarms.com. au.
Growcom is proud to develop and deliver the Fair Farms training and certification program with support from the Fair Work Ombudsman, the Federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment and AUSVEG.