Food
Detect counterfeit and adulterated products, verify ESG or certification claims and reduce the scope of recall with BioTags™
The Industry Challenge
From lettuce to global commodities and specialty products, global food supply chains are constantly at risk of costly product recalls, adulteration, and ESG transgressions. Consumers want assurance that food products are safe for consumption, and traditional barcoding does not enable rapid tracebacks in the event of product contamination and recall. Especially for commodity products that are co-mingled through the supply chain, such as lettuce, it is nearly impossible to trace each leaf in a contaminated bag of lettuce back to its origin. This leads to costly product recalls, with an average cost of $30M alongside reputational damage and unnecessary food waste.
Given the global nature of supply chains, significant risk exists for food fraud and adulteration as well, especially for high value products such as spices, honey and oils. Verifying the source-of-origin for these products requires an on-product traceability solution that can authenticate product provenance and ESG guarantees. BioTags are an FDA approved solution for unprecedented brand protection and quality control.
The Index Advantage
- Maintain the individual identity of ingredients as they are processed and co-mingled with other ingredients to detect fraud or adulteration.
- Achieve rapid source-of-origin identification, without the packaging.
- Verify the ethical and sustainable production of global commodities.
One Solution,
Complete Coverage.
BioTags are a natural yeast product that act as a microscopic barcode to authenticate and trace individual ingredients and finished products. They are mixed with or sprayed onto a product, and application can be easily integrated into existing manufacturing and production workflows. BioTags are applied in trace amounts and have no flavour, odour or colour, making them undetectable to the naked eye. Using common molecular techniques, BioTags can be identified on-site or in a lab at any point along the supply chain. Unique sequences are stored in the Trailhead™ Digital Registry, providing a secure link between a physical food product and its digital supply chain.
