WASHINGTON -- The Procter & Gamble Co., Campbell Soup Co., Kraft Foods and General Mills are among the manufacturers that are pushing the consumer packaged goods industry to adopt the UCCnet data registry as the standard for electronic data sharing.
.J. Heinz Co., Kimberly-Clark Corp., Sara Lee Corp., Hershey Foods Corp., The J. M. Smucker Co. and Unilever PLC & NV.
The Uniform Code Council, UCCnet and EAN International released an open letter to CPG manufacturers and retailers, calling for 600 companies to subscribe to the UCCnet data registry by June 1 to realize the benefits of industrywide data synchronization by the end of 2002.
The statement encouraged the consumer products industry to begin using the EAN.UCC Global Standards Management Process for data synchronization solutions. It also suggested that trading exchanges, including Transora and WWRE, should develop more efficient ways to exchange information to better serve its customers.
"This action on the part of manufacturers and retailers working together represents an encouraging step in achieving global standards," said Manly Molpus, GMA president and chief executive officer. "The sooner we achieve global standards, the sooner we can realize the economic business growth this technology promises."
Supporters on the retail side include Supervalu, Ahold USA, Wal-Mart Stores and Wegmans Food Markets. Transora also signed the letter.
The UCCnet registry enables retailers to locate product data regardless of where the manufacturer has published it.
