Nanta upgrades track & trace

In 2009 Nanta, Nutreco’s animal feed business in Spain, tested and began introducing an electronic track & trace system using bar codes. The Nanta feed plants have a conventional paper-based tracking and tracing system to follow from raw materials to finished products. Management decided to upgrade to an electronic system and in 2009 the bar-code-based system was trialled in the Valencia plant. It uses a combination of the conventional bar codes familiar to most shoppers and two-dimensional codes that carry far more information. The track & trace begins with unique bar code identification of incoming raw materials, in bulk or in bags, and follows through to sales of finished products. The codes are scanned at each step in the sequence to build a record that is linked with a code printed on the final label. Data can be viewed in the Nanta intranet. Conversion has begun in other plants and implementation is scheduled for completion in 2011. An additional test showed the Nanta bar code data can be linked with the track & trace information of Sada, Nutreco’s meat business in Spain. This provides a sequence from feed raw material to meat retail.

Also in 2009, Nanta gained ISO 22000 Food Safety Management System certification at two more feed plants. Certification of Nanta plants under ISO 22000 began in 2008, when the standard was new (see page 57 Nutreco CSR Report 2008). The last of the Nanta plants is scheduled for certification in 2010. The next project is to integrate the quality management and feed safety systems of the plants acquired from Cargill in Spain in December 2009.

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