What is the Food Information Challenge?

Every industry faces challenges in today’s world.

GS1 UK's Food Information Challenge report was commissioned by the Food Service Directors Group (FSDG) in order to identify the data needs of industry.

The intention behind this initiative is straightforward - to get all trading partners speaking a common language, sharing accurate information and enabling the perfect order to cash cycle.

Why?

We recognise that the foodservice sector has made progress in recent years. Yet there are still great numbers of inefficiencies that can be driven out to reduce costs and enhance the experience for the end customer.

The figures are stark:

• £90 - saving per product line when management of foodservice product information is automated (FSDG)
• 70% - percentage of foodservice products entering the supply chain that do not have a globally-recognised identifier carried in a barcode, slowing down time-to-receive and leading to invoice disputes (FSDG)
• £140m - annual cost of poor product supply chain data in profit erosion due to shrinkage and workarounds, with a further £50m in lost revenues (IBM, IGD, Cranfield, VCV)
• £60m - annual loss in sales for the foodservice industry due to out-of-stocks (FSDG)
• £17.5m - cost of the food waste thrown away due to issues associated with stock management (IBM, Planet Retail)

While these savings are significant, really the Food Information Challengeis all about enabling foodservice businesses to better serve the 21st century customer. 
Product information is used by all parties in the supply chain and by almost every department – from sales and marketing to technical and accounts. These departments use different subsets of data, often re-entering, amending and validating it several times over, creating pinch-points within the flow of information and causing time delays and the potential for inaccuracies.

A crucial challenge for the industry therefore is to ensure the right information is in the right place at the right time and updated to include amendments.

How?

GS1 standards can be used to enable solutions for a range of problem areas such as traceability, stock management, automated goods-receipt, invoice discrepancies and master-data accuracy.

We divided the proposed implementation into three focus areas for the industry:

• Product identification - allocating unique identifiers to all live products
• Information capture – rolling out case identification with GS1 barcodes, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and product traceability solutions
• Master data management - publishing product information via a GS1 standards certified service

Bringing industry together

We are not alone in our passion for improving data accuracy – this initiative is supported by key industry businesses in GS1 UK’s Foodservice Directors Group (FSDG). Members include Bidvest 3663, Brakes, Fairway Food Service, Unilever, Whitbread, Creed Foodservice and the British Frozen Food Federation (BFFF).

Find out more

We have a number of resources to help you on your journey towards greater data accuracy and are here to support all types of businesses involved in foodservice.

We published a report outlining the full scope of the opportunity which you can download from our site here.

We also have a new LinkedIn group that enables businesses to exchange best practice and information on improving data accuracy.

If you want to speak to us directly, contact Steve Hammans, Industry Development Manager -  Foodservice, +44 (0)207 0923565 / Steve.Hammans@gs1uk.org.