What’s Keeping Food Companies From Improving Traceability in the Supply Chain?

Food product traceability continues to be a challenge for companies, especially in the event of a food recall. An in-depth, multi-year research project led by Notre Dame Assistant Professor Kaitlin Wowak, who has a Ph.D. in supply chain management, aimed to gain insight on what exactly is hindering food product traceability.

One would assume food companies know where their products are coming from and where they are being distributed, Wowak said. However, the complexities of companies’ supply chains make that process harder than it sounds.

“It’s a lot more complex when you are dealing with really long, interconnected supply chains,” she said.

A new report connected to the project was recently published in the Journal of Business Logistics. The paper, “Tracing Bad Products in Supply Chains: The Roles of Temporality, Supply Chain Permeation, and Product Information Ambiguity,” identified the top three things hindering food product traceability. 

Read the entire story on the Spend Matters website.