Improved food quality and supply chain transparency is no longer behind-the-scenes food safety concern. Consumers are increasingly interested in farm and manufacturing sources, ethical and social responsibilities, and product quality and can force transparency through social media, asking companies in a very public way to answer for unclear or poor supply chain practices. This means manufacturers, distributors, restaurants, and grocery stores are held to a higher standard than ever before.
In order for your food service business to hold onto or see growth within your piece of the market, you need evaluate your supply chain health with a fresh perspective to help you keep up with the ever-changing customer climate and government regulations.
Why Supply Chain Visibility Is Important
From production and manufacturing to distribution and food prep, every part of the supply chain is important. One weak link could mean significant consequences for your customer, your brand, and your bottom line. There are at least three major reasons to work toward better supply chain visibility.
1. The Proactive Advantage
When you achieve total supply chain visibility, you’ll get ongoing assessments of your systems and processes, including transparency of your full production and distribution process. This allows you to immediately see and repair issues in your supply chain before they become large, public-facing problems. In a nutshell, you’re creating a more proactive quality and safety approach. It’s always more effective and economical to fix the small stuff early on rather than react later to fix snowballed problems.
2. Outbreak Protection
A food outbreak could originate in any part of the supply chain, so it’s important that your brand promises of quality and safety are protected each step of the way. With better visibility, you can stop even the smallest noncompliance issues before they have a chance to turn into an outbreak. Think about it this way: It’s comparatively easy and cost-effective to add more training or clarify rules at each stop of your supply chain, but once you veer into recalls, public relations, brand damage, legal actions, and more, nothing is cost-effective or easy.
3. Brand Protection
Of course, your number one concern is protecting your customers from foodborne disease. However, your business also relies on its strong brand to keep loyal customers and to expand further into your market. As you gain total supply chain visibility, you can more consistently deliver on all your brand promises and build customer trust. You’ll better see when suppliers and vendors are not meeting your brand standards or maintaining FSMA compliance, which means you’ll have more control over the quality and safety of your final product. That kind of control is invaluable to protecting your brand and your customers.
How to Deepen Supply Chain Visibility
“The best way to reduce the risk of supply chain failure is by achieving greater visibility, and managing it cross-functionally deeper into the end-to-end supply chain.”
—Erich L. Gampenrieder, Global Head of Operations Advisory, KPMG International
The short answer to better end-to-end supply chain visibility is technology. As globalization, government regulations, industry demands, and customer expectations expand or change, your processes must evolve to keep up. In food safety, this means turning to a cloud-based quality management software (QMS) that helps you easily manage every data point and automate as much as possible.
Beyond the clear advantages of using a QMS — including centralized data, automated supplier workflows, and easy reporting — there is also a simple process to help you gain total quality management across your supply chain and your entire business.
1. Gather meaningful data when introducing new processes or tweaking existing ones.
2. See weak links in your process and evaluate what needs to change.
3. Act to implement changes and improve your process.
4. Repeat continually to improve your insights, compliance, and processes.
When you use this basic framework, you can leverage your supply chain visibility into better insights and processes for your business. First, when new industry, government, or internal standards arise, this process will help you and your suppliers adapt more quickly. Second, with this adaptive mindset, all departments and employees will already have the tools to pivot easily. And last, you will create a culture that values questions and change, which helps employees at every level feel invested in guarding the quality and safety of your product.