WASHINGTON — At a joint public meeting yesterday focused on improving the system for tracing food products and ingredients that are causing illness outbreaks, Robert Carpenter, president and chief executive officer, GS1 US, Lawrenceville, N.J., urged that government agencies incorporate GS1 industry standards in their traceability policies.
The meeting was held by the Food and Drug Administration and the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“The identification, capturing and sharing of information are the three major components of traceability,” said Carpenter, adding that those components are supported by GS1 standards such as Global Trade Item Numbers, Global Location Numbers, bar codes, the electronic product code and data exchange standards.
Carpenter also pointed out the GS1 US is actively involved in current traceability-related initiatives such as the Produce Traceability Initiative, the Institute of Food Technologists’ report, the Rapid Recall Exchange program and the Foodservice GS1 US Standards Initiative.
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