With the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Rule 204, the FDA has intensified its focus on enhanced traceability in food supply chains. Concurrently, major retailers like Kroger, Walmart, Costco, Albertsons and Target are imposing stricter data requirements on its suppliers and distributors to improve supply chain efficiency and compliance. However, the persistence of unvalidated, erroneous, or incomplete data presents systemic risks. These hamper traceability, increase costs and create operational friction. This is particularly true for a distributor, where a large plurality of the data it must pass to its customers is sourced from the original supplier.
This brief explores the importance of “clean” data and the implications of unvalidated data. It underscores the necessity of robust data validation, cleansing and correction mechanisms from suppliers/distributors through to its customers to ensure regulatory alignment and streamline supply chain processes.
