In today's fast-paced and interconnected world, the food industry relies heavily on global supply chains to deliver safe and high-quality products to consumers. The role of food traders in ensuring that food is safe and meets regulatory requirements is therefore crucial. However, ensuring compliance and managing risk in a complex supply chain network can be a daunting task. This is where the supply chain approval process comes into play.
Traditionally, the focus has been on supplier approval, however, the need for a more comprehensive approach to not only direct supplier, but full supply chain approval is becoming increasingly important. Supply chain approval ensures that all suppliers in the chain comply with customer requirements and regulations, thus protecting consumers from potential health risks and ensuring the integrity of the food supply. Agriplace is creating a new product category by enabling its users to monitor direct suppliers, as well as the full supply chain.
But why is supply chain approval so important? Firstly, it is a requirement for the upcoming supply chain legislation in the European market. This new legislation will require companies to track compliance with human rights and environmental standards throughout the supply chain.
It is currently already adopted in some markets and will be followed by all of Europe by 2024 with the European Due Diligence Act.
Secondly, supply chain approval provides a company with a holistic view of the entire supply chain network that it relies on to deliver its products or services. This includes not only the direct suppliers but also all other supply chain actors, such as the packhouse growers and specific products coming from these growers. By ensuring the compliance of the entire supply chain network, a company can identify any weak links or bottlenecks that could impact the overall safety and integrity of the supply chain.
In addition to this, supply chain approval helps a company mitigate risks associated with its supply chain all the way down to the plot level. By informing suppliers and enabling them to inform their sub-suppliers, you can help prevent risks and ensure that the sourced product fits the requirements of your customers.
Why use the Supply Chain Approval platform?
Using the Supply Chain Approval platform enables companies to identify any potential risks or vulnerabilities and take steps to address them before they become a problem. This could include informing suppliers of food safety, and social or environmental improvements needed, diversifying the supply chain, or implementing more robust quality control processes to mitigate any disruptions.
Companies that strive for supply chain responsibility, transparency, and sustainability are now becoming interested in the approval of the whole supply chain. Technological advancements are making these processes more efficient, leading to an increasing need for supply chain approval.
Agriplace's Supply Chain Approval platform facilitates the collection, management, and sharing of supplier information, including quality, sustainability, and social standards. This simplifies the supply chain approval process, making it easier to achieve a fully transparent and sustainable supply chain. The platform automates compliance management from direct suppliers and enables suppliers to share their supply chains information such as packhouses and growers which are worked with in a simple manner.
In conclusion, the supply chain approval process is critical in ensuring that fresh produce companies are ready for the new legislation, customer requirements, and above all a resilient supply chain. If you want to learn more about how to automate compliance management of your supply chain, feel free to request your free trial or demo today through the Agriplace website.