Basel, CH – December 2015

Proof of Origin with Meat Management by Softproviding in Accordance with EU Regulation 1169/2011

 

When EU Regulation (EC) 1169/2011 – or the Food Information Regulation (FIR) – came into force in November 2011, food labeling regulations were reformed throughout the EU. The EU Regulation serves to provide consumers with more comprehensive information when purchasing food and aims to ensure that food is labeled consistently all over Europe. The labels of packaged food have to include more information and must not deceive or mislead the consumer.

 

As the origin of meat is of great importance to consumers, it is now also compulsory for producers to indicate the origin of fresh, chilled, and frozen pig, sheep, goat, and poultry meat, as has long been the case for beef. In addition to the labeling itself, the purpose is to ensure full traceability of the products. It must be possible to prove the origin of the products if requested to do so by the authorities or retailers. Food businesses are therefore obliged to adapt their organization and software to provide correct information on their products at all times.

 

The new regulations also affect Softproviding customers in Europe who use Meat Management, who must adapt their traceability procedures to the new conditions. Softproviding is taking this situation into account and will provide a range of functionalities in an upcoming release that guarantee correct, close tracking while still enabling efficient processes.

 

The functionalities are based on the legal requirements for information and documentation on the origin of meat (Directives):

• Regulation 1337 regarding proof of origin for meat (pig, sheep, goat, poultry) (Directive: 1337)
• Regulation 1760 regarding proof of origin for beef (Directive: 1760)

The legal requirements differentiate between products according to their value for the consumer:

• The higher the quality, or the less a product has been disassembled (whole pieces), the stricter the regulations with regard to proof of origin.
• The higher the quality of the stock type, the stricter the regulations with regard to proof of origin.

Based on these Directives and the values of the various products (materials), origin categories with a value that can be applied to all stock types are defined in Meat Management by Softproviding.

 

The origin categories take account of customer requirements and voluntary information and are always allocated to a basic origin category. These basic origin categories also comply with the directive and define the regulations and exceptions for indicating origin.

 

 

Each material (product) in the material master data that requires proof of origin due to its specification is marked and allocated to an origin category.

 

Different documentation obligations apply to production processes in which products are assigned different values are produced at the same time (disassembly processes).

 

The required documentation obligations are automatically applied to all goods received at the plant (based on purchase orders, stock transfers, and returns) involving a material subject to proof of origin obligations as well as to each production order (disassembly processes, further processing, and packing processes) in which a product subject to proof of origin obligations is produced or packed. Restrictions and exceptions to the obligation to provide proof of origin for final points of sale, the country of sale, and the use of the material can be entered for each supplier, customer, plant, and production process.

 

Meat Management by Softproviding checks that documentation obligations are complied with and notifies the user if this is not the case for

• goods received for purchase orders, stock transfers, and returns
• inbound and outbound production orders
• picking

Integrating origin tracking into production with a highly optimized change control feature prevents losses of productivity.

 

The documentation of the values for the origin information such as country of birth, country of finishing, country of slaughter, slaughterhouse, country of cutting, and cutting plant, and other endorsements such as brand labels or quality programs is subject to unambiguous plausibility checks. The values documented are divided into individual values such as DE, DK, and NL, or collective values such as EU and nEU (non-EU), and are saved in Meat Management by Softproviding with a unique reference number (change ID) that is uniquely assigned to an SAP batch. Batch characteristics that are evaluated based on the values documented for the refer-ence number are assigned to the batch. This ensures the integration of origin tracking into SAP BIC (Batch Information Cockpit) or SAP GBT (Global Batch Traceability).