Coles labels fresh produce requirements compliance: print Coles fresh produce compliant labels for traceability and inventory control of Coles fresh produce. 

99% less fresh produce packing waste

Accurate fresh produce & food inventory management reduces waste through better FIFO stock rotation, stock-takes, and inventory alerts. RFID pallet control (optional) for precision inventory tracking. 

Save time packing fruit & vegetables

Increase the efficiency of fresh produce inventory using options like scanning incoming bar-codes to reduce data entry & errors, integrate with scales for automatic weighing, ore RFID for automatic fresh produce inventory tracking.

Better fresh produce quality control

Guarantee the quality of your fresh produce packing with flexible fresh QC testing systems from your phone or tablet. Customer feedback management, supplier quality control and more...

Reduce fresh produce packing errors & control production

Project required inventory (and shortages), schedule orders to be packed in batches , automatic alerts to prodution line managers.

100% accurate fresh produce order shipping

Shipping teams are guided through the dispatch process from picking using a phone or tablet (optional bar-code scanning), automatic picking, thru bill of lading, invoice, and automatic shipping notifications for customers, transport, and sales teams.

Reduce fresh produce packing administration costs by 40%

Automatic generation of fresh produce labels, bill of lading, invoice, picking documents and more; reduces administrative burden.

Easy audit & recall systems reduces compliance costs.

Faster fresh produce inventory storage  inventory

Accurate fresh produce & food inventory management delivers reduced waste and increased employee productivity. Manage FIFO, improve stock-take accuracy, scan harvester data, and keep a watchful eye on your inventory... Easy stock-take identifies shrinkage and helps reduce waste from ageing. 

100% accurate fresh produce traceability

Maintain strict fresh produce traceability and high food safety standards always. Perform recalls based on lot/batch, pack date, invoice #, inventory #, pallet #, delivery date, purchase order #, or perform a recall on your own user defined data. Perform instant recalls both up and down the supply chain. Makes audits easy and instant. COVID-19 food safety & auditing available. 

Reduce fresh produce waste by 99%

Inventory control ensures there is no 'shrinkage', food inventory is FIFO managed, and expiring inventory always monitored.

Reduce administration time by 60%

Automatic paperwork, labels, and reporting reduces the burden on administration teams and saves everyone's time.

Better fresh produce quality now

Quality control and food safety has never been easier with industry standard quality tests, food safety checklists; or configure your own tests. 

100% accurate orders!

Guarantee only the correct inventory is shipped for each order, on time, every time.

Coles labels fresh produce requirements compliance: print Coles fresh produce compliant labels for traceability and inventory control of Coles fresh produce. 

Farmsoft fresh produce packing app is for fruit & vegetable packer, processor, import/export.  Full fresh produce traceability, auditing, inventory control, and fresh produce business management app.

Quality inspection for fresh produce

Consistent and accurate quality control ensures higher customer satisfaction and adherence to industry, de-facto, and in-house quality control standards. Track supplier quality performance, customer feedback & complaints, create QC tests for any part of the fresh produce & food manufacturing process (incoming goods, raw materials, finished goods, expiry test, export/shipping tests), daily factory hygiene, machinery calibration, employee checklists... 

Fresh produce logistics

Manage orders, pack to order, picking and auto picking, dispatch & shipping process. Generate invoices, bill of lading, pick slips, export documentation and other sales documents... Dispatch teams are guided through the dispatch process ensuring every order is filled perfectly, and on time. Paperwork such as BOL, freight documents, export documents are automatically generated based on the customer and destination to guarantee no rejected shipments or issues at borders.

Fresh produce labels

Generate fresh produce SSCC pallet labels, GS1 case & PTI labels, bin labels, batch labels, traded unit labels, harvest labels and more. Use the built in industry standard labels for Walmart, Woolworths, Aldi, Tesco, Loblaws etc - or design your own with the built in label & report designer. Our team can design all of your fresh produce documents to ensure farmsoft matches your requirements perfectly.

Fresh produce packing control

Sales, Quality, Profit, Dispatch, Pack, Farm...... Dashboards for sales teams provide instant impressions of customer orders and current inventory levels. The dispatch dashboard helps plan shipments, order of loading, and transport companies & drivers... The Profit analysis dashboard shows margins per unit and most profitable customers. Use our API to access your data however you like.

Fresh produce batch packing

Project required raw materials needed to pack/manufacture orders, potential shortages, schedule multiple orders to be packed in batches on selected production lines with a few clicks, automatically send new job alerts to managers, schedule additional harvests, analyze outstanding orders. Manage entire packing and manufacturing process with ease.

Fresh produce alerts monitoring

Automatic alerts for shipments can be sent to customers, transport providers, or even team members. Every time a batch is finished processing, receive an alert with the pack-out breakdown and percentages of grades & quality and waste. Alerts can include simple shipment notifications, or even invoices and original order details. Other alerts include order changes/modifications, yield reports, new order alerts, and low inventory alerts... 

Farm app option

Implement the farmsoft Farm Management suite to provide a comprehensive integrated business management solution from seed to plate. Includes automatic task management, best practices, budgeting, farm inventory, PHI enforcement, audits, residue reporting, USDA reporting, dashboards, recalls and more... 

Fresh produce supplier quality control

Suppliers must know that your business is measuring and tracking their performance. Any trends that effect the quality of fresh produce can be quickly detected, automatically traced back to the fresh produce supplier (especially if a result of a customer complaint / feedback), management and purchasing teams are automatically alerted when a supplier quality issue happens. Quantify your suppliers quality using the Supplier Quality Dashboard. 

Fresh produce finance apps

Share data with your Xero finance app, Quickbooks, MYOB, SAGE, using our API, or request our team perform a custom integration for your fresh produce company. This is an optional module, please ask your consultant for additional details and discuss your specific requirements, additional costs will apply for integration with your chosen finance app. 

Fresh produce RFID

Automatic tracking of each pallet’s exact location. Makes loading orders accurate and easy, stops errors during shipping. Very low costs to setup your hardware using farmsoft’s innovative RFID for fresh produce solution. Pallets put onto truck are auto added to order, and checked for accuracy. Pick up a pallet and its RFID instantly selected. Add pallet/bin to production line and its auto added to batch for traceability.

Fresh produce API

Integrate with virtually any other app or software solution using the farmsoft API. It's open! Anyone can use it. Your in house I.T. team, or any external I.T. vendor you want to help you with integration. Add your own reports, extract special data, or even create new interfaces between farmsoft and any app such as accounting, payroll, B2B, B2C. Other integration in farmsoft includes the ability to integrate with selected weigh scales to capture fresh produce net delivery weights.

Fresh produce bloch-chain

Increase customer confidence and prove the credentials of your traceability integrity and transparency with block-chain ledger technology.   We use the chain-trace.com blockchain solution. (Optional module not included with standard Packing / Food Manufacturing ERP solution).

Improve fresh produce production planning

Efficient management customer orders, and the ability to analyze orders gives you new production planning tolls in farmsoft. Ensure each order is filled to exact specifications, on time, every time. Increase customer satisfaction and retention, and reduce stress in the packhouse with confident production planning using work orders/batch orders, sales contracts, sales orders, and sales order items. Are you manufactruing or processing chili products? Try farmsoft for chili processing. 

Accurate fresh produce traceability

Quality officers are guided through the quality control process, presented with images and instructions for each test, ensuring they know what to look for at all times, corrective actions are presented if a quality issue is detected. This makes training new fresh produce quality control officers fast, and ensures consistency in the quality control management processes for incoming fresh produce, post pack/post processing, storage, and dispatch. 

Efficient use of fresh produce cold stores

Maximize your cold store use and rotation of stock using farmsoft's pallet maps, and precision traceability tracking with expiring inventory reminders.
Cold store management software for fruit importers, exporters, packers, cross docking, and short and long term fruit storage.

Coles labels fresh produce requirements compliance: print Coles fresh produce compliant labels for traceability and inventory control of Coles fresh produce. 

The farmsoft inventory control app provides business wide quality management inspection systems for fresh produce, food manufacturing, seed processing, meat packing & processing, and flower packing.


Woolworths food compliance for food vendors and food manufacturing:  Food Manufacturing Requirements

Woolworths food manufacturing requirements compliance
Woolworths food manufacturing requirements compliance
1. INTRODUCTION

Here at Woolworths we are committed to working closely with our suppliers, to provide our customers with a fantastic range of products they can trust to be safe and have consistent quality for them and their family. In the development of the Supplier Excellence Program, we have listened to the feedback we have received from our suppliers and endeavoured to develop a program that:  

Suppliers will need to maintain each level of the Supplier Excellence Program, and be audited to:
Level 1: a GFSI* benchmark standard or Supplier Excellence Base Standard.
❖ if your business is audited to one of the GFSI Standards below, you may not need to be audited to the Supplier Excellence Base Standard
❖ if your business does not have a GFSI certification, you will need to be audited against the Supplier Excellence Standard and maintain a satisfactory (minimum Amber) grade ongoing.
Level 2: includes any applicable Industry Standards and Codes of Practice (COPs) - See Appendix 1at the end of this document.
Level 3: Woolworths authorised product specifications are required for all Woolworths branded products, exclusive and fresh products. These have to be current and agreed prior to first production of any product.

Walmart food safety compliance app for traceability and food safety: for all food businesses including fresh produce, fruit & vegetable packer:  Walmart fresh produce compliance
Food Safety Assessment in Walmart Stores have aligned with GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) and requires all private brand suppliers, regardless of company size or the inherent food safety risks associated with their products, to obtain full GFSI certification. Every operation from farm to final pack house or warehouse must achieve GFSI certification to be a Private Brand Supplier. For more information about the certification process for fresh produce, you may review The Supplier’s Guide to Becoming GFSI Certified. Please visit www.mygfsi.com for a full list of recognized schemes. You may also view a list of the recognized audits on the Level
Safety Audit Requirements document.
FDA Bioterrorism Registration - Suppliers will need to ensure that all fresh produce compliance Walmart operations that provide product to Walmart and/or Sam’s Club have registered with
the FDA and have a current FDA bioterrorism registration number. Each operation that is approved and issued a vendor number is required to have an individual FDA registration. To ensure fresh produce Compliance, suppliers will provide this number to Walmart upon our request.

Track and trace fresh produce fruit & vegetable traces fresh produce products from field to plate using simple to use apps for small, medium, and large fruit & vegetable packer, processor, and food manufacturer.  TRACK-AND-TRACE TECHNOLOGY FOR FRESH PRODUCE & FRUIT & VEGETABLE PROCESSOR AND PACKERS
FarmSoft track and trace is a comprehensive fresh produce business management solution that caters for all operational processes from quality control, inventory, sales, dispatch, and orders. FarmSoft even provides food manufacturing, good manufacturing management, and value adding features. FarmSoft track and trace software provides many innovative features to bring easily maintained benefits to the fresh produce processor, packer, and marketer.

Using the FarmSoft traceability code, customers, and end consumers can track and trace fresh produce simply by scanning a QR code with their smartphone. The track and trace system will then present the customer/end consumer with the traceability or marketing information as chosen by the packer. This helps to improve customer confidence and provides supply chain transparency to promote the concept of food safety.

Herb drying, packing, sales: Manage the entire herb drying and dehydration, packing, processing, and sales space for herb processors and packers.  Herb drying, packing, sales: Manage the entire herb drying and dehydration, packing, processing, and sales space for herb processors and packers.
Herbs are widely utilized in food and health industries. Their beneficial effects to the human body have been attributed to the presence of active phytochemical ingredients with some efficiency for disease treatment as well as for beauty and health enhancement. Public awareness on the adverse effects of synthetic chemical products also increased the demand for herbal products. Highly efficient herbal processing and extraction technologies have been developed to obtain the optimal amounts of active ingredients from herbs and cope with the rising demands for herbal products. This article reviews the state-of-the-art development in herbal processing and extraction methods from the year 1991 until 2015. We start with a brief history of herbal usage, followed by descriptions of 10 types of extraction processes and critical analysis of their relative advantages and disadvantages. Scale-up considerations of the extraction methods are shared, and a highlight of the current and future challenges facing the herbal industry is presented.


11-Point Checklist for Perishable Inventory Management > Fresh produce inventory management:   1: Demand Classification


Advanced inventory optimization tools are available to profitably replenish your perishable inventory and help standardize your perishable ordering for maximum user efficiency, top-line revenue and profitability. These forecasting systems enable buyers to easily replenish perishable inventory multiple times per week, adapt quickly to new trends, plan for seasonality, accurately calculate safety stock, accommodate varying lead times, manage product dating and visualize expiration data, understand cost constraints and more.

If you want the best possible prediction of future demand, you’ll need to classify demand properly. Demand classification technology analyzes your SKUs and puts them in the proper classifications – such as continuous sellers, seasonal, intermittent, lumpy, slow moving, etc. – using demand attributes like volume and volatility. Your users can then leverage these in selecting forecast models and creating seasonal a forecast adjustment.


Produce a wide range of essential export documents for your fresh produce business, including SENASA, COO (Certificate of origin), Phytosanitary certificates and more. Guarantee your export documents are 100% accurate, and rapidly produced to ensure timely delivery of your fresh produce export/imports.
PRINT SENASA EXPORT DOCUMENTS
Generate SENASA export documents rapidly, and accurately. Email SENASA export documents to customers and shippers, and international freight forwarders.
BUILT IN SENASA TRACEABILITY
Guarantee the accuracy of your SENASA documents, with full pick list including pallet details and batch summaries. Up front traceability declarations increase customer confidence.
SENASA DOCUMENT DETAILS
The farmsoft SENASA documents include serial, internal batch, remission guide, producer code, Jaba used, supplier batch, boxes from each batch, and weight details.

Woolworths compliance & traceability made easy...
The farmsoft solution helps your business comply with Woolworths fresh produce packaging, labeling, and traceability requirements. Traceability is built into the core of farmsofts fresh produce inventory management solution; from orders, through to dispatch and sales. Ensure your fresh produce business complies with Woolworths fresh produce requirements with ease and speed. Print Woolworths compliant GS1-128 RPC (returnable plastic crate) tags, carton labels, crate labels, and Woolworths compliance SSCC pallet labels. Full bar-code inventory & pallet management, stock take (mobile & PC), pallet control, inventory labels (raw & finished), cold store, 3D storage, container management...  Reduce waste during the packing, processing, storage, and distribution phases. By enforcing Woolworths best practices, FIFO, inventory expiry monitoring, and easy stock takes - your company has every opportunity to minimize waste and maximize profit. From bar-code managed inventory, inventory labeling, to 3D pallet storage, farmsoft delivers on reduced waste. 

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 fresh produce labeling requirements made easy with farmsoft...
Rapidly generate batch specific labels for packing fresh produce for Coles label compliance. Full enforcement of traceability and quality control compliance for Coles fresh produce vendors, suppliers, and partners.

REDUCE PACKING WASTE
By enforcing Coles best practices, FIFO, inventory expiry monitoring, and easy stock takes - your company has every opportunity to minimize waste and maximise profit.
COLES TRACEABILITY COMPLIANCE.  Perform recalls in seconds, with the full confidence of accuracy and reliability. Minimise risk by ensuring accurate traceability is automatically captured and all Coles traceability and compliance is being met at all times. Easy audits & reduced compliance costs.

Coles compliance fresh produce helps fresh produce packers, wholesalers, import/exporters of fresh produce adhere to Coles fresh produce compliance from labelling, documentation, traceability, quality control and more...  Easily comply with Coles traceability, labeling, and fresh produce management.

Coles compliance fresh produce quality control
Coles compliance fresh produce quality control
REDUCE PACKING WASTE
By enforcing Coles best practices, FIFO, inventory expiry monitoring, and easy stock takes - your company has every opportunity to minimize waste and maximise profit.
COLES TRACEABILITY COMPLIANCE
Perform recalls in seconds, with the full confidence of accuracy and reliability. Minimise risk by ensuring accurate traceability is automatically captured and all Coles traceability and compliance is being met at all times. Easy audits & reduced compliance costs.
REDUCE ADMINISTRATION COSTS
Minimise your admin costs with automatic and accurate printing/emailing of dispatch dockets, invoices, coles labels and more. No more rejected orders because of wrong documentation accompanying a shipment.
COLES QUALITY CONTROL

USDA APHIS compliance software solution to improve fruit and vegetable compliance for import and export to the USA. Increase efficiency, reduce waste in the fresh produce supply chain.  USDA APHIS compliance software solutions guide your fresh produce handling processes and ensure strict and easy compliance with traceability, food safety, and recall processes for importers and exporters.  USDA APHIS compliance software solution for packers of fruit and vegetables: processors, exporters and wholesalers of fresh produce.  USDA APHIS compliance software solutions from farmsoft guides employees through the entire USDA APHIS compliance process, making sure every action is taken at the correct time, and correct traceability details are being preserved at every step. This results in reduced waste and increased employee productivity by following correct food handling and food safety processes for post harvest activities in USDA APHIS compliance environments. Using farmsoft’s document management system for permits and certifications, you can manage Organism & Soil Permits, Plant Product Permits, transit permit information, fruit and vegetable import requirements (FAVIR), permit to import plants and more.

Tesco compliance fresh produce


Tesco compliance fresh produce, Tesco, Woolworths, Aldi, and Loblaw compliance software.  Tesco, Woolworths, Aldi, and Loblaw food safety compliance.  Tesco Food Manufacturing Standard (TFMS). This standard has been developed to outline the requirements to which manufacturers must comply in order to begin supplying, and thereafter continue supplying Tesco, either directly or indirectly. The standards support our commitment to ensuring all Tesco brand products are safe, meet legal requirements, and always meet customer expectations with respect to quality, provenance and responsible sourcing, building trust in the Tesco brand and supply chain.  This version builds upon Tesco’s UK approach of ensuring that standards can be applied in a way that manages risk and grows capability. It is intended to be interpreted by our suppliers across the world, in a way that allows individual sites to put controls in place that are appropriate to them and their industry, and proportional to the risks specific to their products, their processes and their site environment. Full application of the standards will support suppliers in driving improvement, a reduction in non-conforming products, and therefore help to reduce waste and cost.


Print AANZFTA & Organic Certificate (Australia) for exporters
AANZFTA & Organic Certificate
AANZFTA & Organic Certificate
AUSTRALIAN CERTIFIED ORGANIC 320-09 EX1399 and 320-10 EX11300
The majority of organic products sold in Australia carry the Australian Certified Organic Logo. You will see the BUD on products including fresh produce fruit and vegetables such as apple, orange, citrus, sultana, currant, table grapes, avocado, dried fruits, and other perishable foods.
Fresh produce and quality dried fruits represent everything that Australian organics is about – the growth and promise of spring, the sign of big things growing from the initial organic movement, and the strength and logic of nature and natural (biological and organic) systems in guiding our choices in life. Australian organic fresh produce and dried fruits tells consumers that all the product ingredients have been certified to the Australian Certified Organic Standard and have met rigorous certification checks. Use farmsoft for packing products such as fresh produce and dried fruits which have achieved certification through ACO’s certification scheme. Print Organic Certificates for Australia’s leading certification program – ACO – ensuring integrity of organic products in the marketplace for consumers and reducing administrative costs. Print Organic Certificate 320-09 EX1399 and Organic Certificate 320-10 EX11300 quickly from farmsoft for each shipment ready for export. ACO FAQ.

USDA fresh produce compliance software
USDA fresh produce compliance software:  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees food safety for fresh fruit and vegetables. After several large outbreaks of food borne illnesses in the mid-1990s, traced to California lettuce and Guatemalan raspberries, FDA started to focus on the potential for microbial contamination of fresh produce at the farm level. In 1998, FDA published its voluntary guidelines for good agricultural practices (GAPs) to reduce microbial contamination. FDA acknowledges that with current technology it is possible to reduce, but not eliminate, the risk of microbial contamination. These voluntary guidelines are used by many U.S. and foreign producers growing for the U.S. market. GAPs are general guidelines that can be used for any fresh fruit or vegetable. For growers, adopting GAPs has benefits and costs. When there is an outbreak traced to a particular commodity, all growers face reduced consumer demand, even if the outbreak is not traced to their operation. Farmers with GAPs can reduce their losses in such a case. In the 2003 hepatitis A outbreak associated with green onions imported from Mexico, growers with GAPs and third-party audits of their status suffered fewer losses than other Mexican growers who could not easily show buyers that they took food-safety precautions.  

FSMA compliance for fresh produce processing - an easy to use software solution.  FSMA compliance for fresh produce processing. Less waste, more traceability.
FSMA COMPLIANCE FOR FRESH PRODUCE PROCESSING

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is considered the most sweeping reform of US food safety laws in more than 70 years. The FSMA focuses on preventing, rather than reacting to contamination. Therefore, it requires organizations within the food industry to ensure that their supply chains are secure.
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety rule is now final, and the earliest compliance dates for some farms begin one year after the effective date of the final rule (see “Compliance Dates” below). The rule establishes, for the first time, science-based minimum standards for the safe growing, harvesting, packing, and holding of fruits and vegetables grown for human consumption.
The final rule is a combination of the original proposal and revisions outlined in the supplemental proposal, with additional changes as appropriate. The definition of “farm” and related terms were revised in the final Preventive Controls for Human Food rule, and the same definitions of those terms are used in this rule to establish produce safety standards. Operations whose only activities are within the farm definition are not required to register with FDA as food facilities and thus are not subject to the preventive controls regulations.

Walmart fresh produce compliance software for fruit and vegetable packers & wholesalers.  
Food Safety Assessment in Walmart Stores have aligned with GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) and requires all private brand suppliers, regardless of company size or the inherent food safety risks associated with their products, to obtain full GFSI certification. Every operation from farm to final pack house or warehouse must achieve GFSI certification to be a Private Brand Supplier. For more information about the certification process for fresh produce, you may review The Supplier’s Guide to Becoming GFSI Certified. Please visit www.mygfsi.com for a full list of recognized schemes. You may also view a list of the recognized audits on the Level
Safety Audit Requirements document.


FDA Bioterrorism Registration - Suppliers will need to ensure that all fresh produce compliance Walmart operations that provide product to Walmart and/or Sam’s Club have registered with
the FDA and have a current FDA bioterrorism registration number. Each operation that is approved and issued a vendor number is required to have an individual FDA registration. To ensure fresh produce Compliance, suppliers will provide this number to Walmart upon our request.  Licensing & Registration - Certain states have licensing and registration requirements above and beyond Federal registration requirements.  


BRC fresh produce compliance software for easy food safety fruit and vegetable packing and processing.  BRC fresh produce compliance software for food safety
The BRC Food Safety Standard can be used by any food processing operation where open food is handled, processed or packed. This could be from primary products such as fresh produce pack houses and slaughterhouses through to processed foods, canneries and ready to eat products. We’ve designed the BRC Food Safety Standard to help you establish good manufacturing practices so you’ll produce safe, legal products that meet the quality levels expected by your customers.

BRC fresh produce compliance
BRC fresh produce compliance

For any food safety system to be effective it’s essential the senior management team is fully committed to its application and continued development. The basis for the Food Safety System is an effective HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) program based on the requirements of the internationally recognised Codex Alimentarius system. Sets out expectations for the production environment including the layout and maintenance of the buildings and equipment, cleaning, pest control, waste management and foreign body controls.


BRC Sets out requirements for the management of food safety and quality, building upon the principles of ISO 9000. This includes requirements for product specifications, supplier approval, traceability, and the management of incidents and product recalls.



HACCP GLOBALGAP compliance for fruit packers - complete business management software for recall, audit, inventory, and traceability.  Hazard analysis and critical control points or HACCP is a systematic preventive approach to food safety from biological, chemical, and physical hazards in production processes that can cause the finished product to be unsafe, and designs measurements to reduce these risks to a safe level. In this manner, HACCP is referred as the prevention of hazards rather than finished product inspection.

The HACCP system can be used at all stages of a food chain, from food production and preparation processes including packaging, distribution, etc. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) require mandatory HACCP programs for juice and meat as an effective approach to food safety and protecting public health.
Seafood and juice are regulated by the FDA. All other food companies in the United States that are required to register with the FDA under the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, as well as firms outside the US that export food to the US, are transitioning to mandatory Hazard Analysis and Risk-based Preventive Controls (HARPC) plans.
HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) is a system that helps food business operators look at how they handle food and introduces procedures to make sure the food produced is safe to eat.

GFSI compliance for fruit and vegetable handling - complete business management software:  A food safety management scheme is ‘recognised’ by GFSI when it meets internationally recognised minimum food safety requirements, developed by multi stakeholders, which are set out in the GFSI Guidance Document | GFSI Benchmarking Requirements. GFSI is not a scheme in itself, and neither does it carry out any accreditation or certification activities.


Certification to a GFSI recognised scheme is achieved through a successful third party audit against any of the schemes listed as being recognised by GFSI. The third party companies that provide certification services are known as Certification Bodies (CBs). They are key stakeholders to GFSI and active participants, both in the professional network as well as in the GFSI Technical Working Groups. The Certification Bodies are authorised to audit against the recognised scheme through a formal agreement with the Scheme Owner (SO) combined with the scope of their accreditation.

Accreditation Bodies (ABs) are not-for-profit organisations, either government owned or under agreement with government, charged with ensuring that participating Certification Bodies in the country are subject to oversight by an authoritative body.

Accreditation Bodies may not be high profile in each country but they play a key role in the accredited certification process and ensuring international consistency in conformity assessment.

Due to complex challenges in today’s food supply chain, many of the world's largest food retailers are mandating supplier certification to Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) schemes, which include SQF, BRC, IFS, FSSC, GLOBALG.A.P. and BAP and CanadaGAP.

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.