Food and Beverage

 Every day, all over KSA, millions of food and beverage items make their way from farms and factories, to supermarket shelves, cafes, bars and restaurants.

 In recent years, due to the food safety events such as melamine, plasticizing agents and in order to provide consumers' known interests, s, government and private sector work together to promote tracking mechanism and set up the local GTP (Good Traceability Practice).

 Several leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands and retailers started collaborating last year to address an issue growing larger by the day—inaccurate product data in the supply chain. They have challenged themselves to better serve customers who are shopping for their groceries more and more with smartphone in hand or shopping online. These companies worked together with the common understanding that standardization is imperative to have a consistent view of product data across the supply chain.

The group led by GS1 and the Consumer Goods Forum focused on the root causes of bad data in the retail grocery industry. Verified by GS1— a new, global cloud-based registry that will help trading partners confirm the unique identity of products—resulted from these discussions. It will serve as a single source for retailers, marketplaces and the solution providers they work with to automatically check core product attributes to help ensure the integrity of product listings

 The Identification Number

Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) is used to uniquely identify a trade item in the global supply chain. This number is encoded into the U.P.C. barcode used at the point of sale or can be included in online product listings.

 The GTIN plays a critical role in a product’s identity due to the way it is constructed. The brand owner selling the product is identified in the number itself in the form of a company prefix, the first few numbers of the GTIN. But over the years, erroneous numbers have plagued the CPG industry. A prefix that has four zeros, for example, is an indicator that the GTIN is not unique and might have been the result of human error.

 Also, some brand owners have found that GTINs were “borrowed” from other products during the setup process, resulting in duplicate GTINs in the supply chain, often tied to very different products. The GTIN is the key piece of information for a retailer to know they are working with a reputable company and can confidently add a product to their offering.

 The Essential Descriptors

Brand name is another important part of a product’s identity, especially in relation to its GTIN. Verified by GS1 will provide a way for brands and retailers to make sure the right brand name is used in connection with the right GTIN. GS1 worked with member companies to set forth a common definition for brand name to increase consistency in the supply chain. It is a name provided by the brand owner that is intended to be recognized by the consumer as represented on the product.