Software services company ReposiTrak added 20 new dairy and egg suppliers to its traceability network, according to an April press release. The new members will use the ReposiTrak Traceability Network to meet Food and Drug Administration requirements and their customers’ food traceability needs.
In 2022, the FDA published its final traceability protocols for food products more prone to contamination — with products like cheese and vegetables high on the list of foods requiring stricter tracing. The compliance date for the requirements is Jan. 20, 2026.
The members will use the platform to exchange FDA-required data with five retail and wholesale customers for tracking throughout their supply chains. Members include cottage cheese and sour cream producers, a yogurt producer, and a distributor of fresh eggs, according to the press release.
“The food business as a whole is a low margin business, so it’s difficult to do special handling case by case, shipment by shipment and location by location,” Chairman and CEO Randy Fields told Supply Chain Dive in an email. “It turns out it’s much easier and more efficient operationally to track everything rather than figure out the few things that aren’t covered.”
For egg producers, a lot of their product output is covered by Section 204 for traceability, Fields said. However, there is some confusion regarding products that are covered or not.
“Retailers simply want to be in compliance with the rule and suppliers that are trying to separate their product lines for traceability are creating confusion in the marketplace,” said the CEO. “The simplest answer, and the one that we believe is now moving through the industry, is just to trace all products instead of trying to figure out which lines are, and which ones are not, covered.”
Companies have been advancing efforts on food traceability and regulatory compliance, sparking an interest in software service providers like ReposiTrak. In this year alone, ReposiTrak added several seafood, baked goods, meat and poultry suppliers, and more to its traceability network.
In January, grocery distributor SpartanNash tapped Repositrak to collect traceability data from hundreds of suppliers.