SOUTH AFRICA – The Red Meat Industry Services (RMIS) in South Africa has launched Phase 1 of an innovative traceability platform to enhance transparency and efficiency in the country’s red meat supply chain from farms to retailers.
The introduction of this new traceability platform is expected to significantly enhance the industry’s visibility, competitiveness, and resilience in both local and global markets.
According to RMIS CEO, Dewald Olivier, the traceability could be the most impactful initiative the livestock industry has seen since South Africa became a net exporter of red meat.
“This initiative as the foundation should, linked with grading and the other initiatives, enable the red meat value chain to achieve its 2030 strategy,” he added.
The Phase 1 will help to identify and number production units throughout the red meat value chain, encompassing communal land, commercial farms, auction houses, feedlots, and abattoirs.
These Production Unit Numbers will serve as the foundation for the RMIS Traceability Platform, which aims to address disease management and enable recalls, combat stock theft, enhance trade through the sharing of traceability and production data and increase market access to commercial value chains and export markets.
The Production Unit Number, or Global Location Number (GLN), serves as a standard to enhance recognition across the value chain, retail, and international markets.
It will also be useful in verifying the location of sellers for buyers, and in the future, it will facilitate the request for digitized transport documents, including Articles 6, 8, and health declarations.
Moreover, the integration of various record-keeping systems with the RMIS Traceability Platform will utilize the Production Unit Number as a location reference for sharing traceability data.
After the successful identification of locations, subsequent phases will focus on capturing and sharing essential traceability data through various recordkeeping systems integrated with the RMIS Traceability Platform, promoting decentralized data management.
Dr Phillip Oosthuizen, RMIS COO, commented that the success of traceability will depend on an efficient, transparent, and trustworthy platform, a phased implementation approach, and the collaboration of each participant in the value chain.
Over the past six months, RMIS has worked closely with stakeholders, including small-scale and commercial farmers, auction houses, feedlots, abattoirs, service providers, and government bodies, to building a sustainable and efficient red meat value chain.
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