DALLAS — The Food Marketing Institute and GS1 US plan to launch the Product Recall Collaboration Zone, an online portal allowing manufacturers to disseminate standard recall information to retailers, by late summer of this year, said Patrick Walsh, FMI’s vice president of industry and trade development. Walsh participated in a session on the system yesterday with Tim White, director, product development, GS1 Canada, at GS1 US’ U Connect 08 conference here at the Gaylord Texan, where it was formally unveiled and demonstrated. Subscription fees for access to the system, based on annual revenue, will be announced in 30-45 days, Walsh said, adding, “Our object is to keep the cost to a bare minimum.” The portal includes standard forms that a manufacturer would fill out in the event of a recall; only authorized retailers and manufacturers will be given access. “There are currently a wide variety of recall standards and methods, and the result is often missing or extraneous information,” said White. “This attempts to provide an answer to that problem.”

Read More of Today's Headlines