In collaboration with major food and grocery suppliers, both major supermarket retailers and the Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry, GS1 New Zealand will introduce a national recall notification service in April this year.
The service, ProductRecallNZ, is designed to improve the efficiency of removing potentially harmful grocery, food, liquor and other products from the supply chain.
Its development has involved a who’s who of New Zealand companies like Cadbury, DB Breweries, Fonterra Brands, Foodstuffs, Goodman Fielder, Kimberly-Clark, Nestle, the New Zealand Food & Grocery Council, Progressive Enterprises and MAF over the last 12 months.
“A recall/withdrawal can be a stressful time for a manufacturer, especially as it is a process that is seldom put into practice. An industry-wide solution to assist in this area is long overdue,” says quality assurance manager, DB Breweries Dianne Bird.
GS1 ProductRecallNZ will enable manufacturers and suppliers to share realtime recall and withdrawal notifications with their trading partners in a secure and targeted manner. It will offer a range of business benefits including:
- A single, industry-based recall and withdrawal process, aligned with the requirements of the regulator
- An easy and intuitive workflow that makes the process of issuing and managing notifications simpler and without duplication of effort
- The ability to target notifications to selected companies with tailored information
- Lower risks and costs in the execution of recalls with associated brand protection
- Recipients of notifications – primarily retailers – will have an electronic notification point, with appropriate audit trails replacing the kaleidoscope of emails, faxes and phone calls prevalent now
Once operational, it is intended that ProductRecallNZ will become the de facto tool used by New Zealand’s major retailers to support product recall and withdrawals.
Using ProductRecallNZ does not replace any statutory obligations associated with a recall.
“It will bring the New Zealand fastmoving consumer goods (FMCG) sector more into line with international trading partners and will provide consistency of process for New Zealand manufacturers and suppliers who need to activate a withdrawal or recall with their respective retail networks” says Mark Bell, national compliance and food safety manager for Countdown.
To register your interest:
Tel: 0800 10 23 56
Email: [email protected]
Visit: www.gs1nz.org
GS1 is a global not-for-profit organisation dedicated to global standards and solutions that improve the efficiency and visibility of supply and demand chains. The GS1 system is the most widely used supply chain standards system in the world. GS1 New Zealand is the New Zealand member of the global GS1 organisation, enabling its more than 4,500 members – made up of businesses of all sizes from 22 sectors across New Zealand – to enhance their efficiency and cost effectiveness by adopting electronic supply-chain best practices.
