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FEB 8, 2008
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ScoringAg touts ‘immediate, inexpensive’ traceback
By Angie Hanson

(Feb. 7) Three seconds is all ScoringAg requires when tracking a product’s lineage.

In that time, growers, shippers, packers, transportation providers and retailers can view an item’s traceback records and inspection history.

ScoringAg is a global, online record-keeping system housing data for thousands of fruit and vegetable products, said William Kanitz, president of Sarasota, Fla.-based ScoringSystem Inc., which developed ScoringAg.

ScoringAg’s objective is to provide a simple, reliable, immediate, inexpensive traceback system that minimizes foodsafety risks for handlers worldwide and helps avoid product ambiguity in future recalls, Kanitz said of the Web site, www.scoringag.com.

“This system provides a verifiable audit trail, and with the click of a button, it can give you that in three seconds,” Kanitz said. “It’s an exchange of information along the way, so everyone’s happy. And, if there is a problem, we only recall the portion where there is a problem, not in every warehouse in the U.S. That’s what the industry needs.”

To search an item’s history, registered users can enter either bar, radio frequency identification or SSI-EID codes — which is the internal code ScoringAg automatically creates when a grower, shipper or packer registers a product in its system — and the product’s real-time profile is instantly uploaded, Kanitz said.

The profile features any commodity information the handler wants to include — such as origin, producer, lot number, harvest dates, certifications and tests received —and each product’s records accompany it through the supply chain, Kanitz said.

Additionally, the records are secure, so if there is an error, a new report is created, and the Unix-based system chronologically archives the product’s previous records, he said.

“We’re looking to make life easier for produce brokers and retailers,” Kanitz said. “The records travel with the product from field to fork.”

The system also separates traceback information for each item included in mixed packs, so there is no confusion about the origin of the individual products, Kanitz said.

Like RFID and bar codes, retailers can find SSI-EID codes on the individual item or package. Chains like Publix and Wal-Mart have expressed interest in using the record-keeping catalog, Kanitz said.

Costs are minimal, too, as only $10 is needed to establish an account on ScoringAg — a considerably cheaper alternative than companies creating their own traceback networks, he said.

Not to mention, total SSI-EID label costs will only amount to one-fourth of a penny for shippers and packers, while growers are charged 55 cents for each commodity field they want to feature in the database, he said.

ScoringAg is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and French and German translations are in the works.

The Unix-based system, however, uses UTF-8 — a uniform way of representing characters entered in a computer — so the database recognizes any language that is typed into the system.

Consumers also can access ScoringAg, but they receive a public version of the records that don’t include the grower’s name, he said.

Down the road, Kanitz hopes to make consumers more aware of ScoringAg by having kiosks set up in grocery stores where consumers can punch in the code.

Kanitz would also like to see a universal symbol established in the produce industry that indicates whether or not an item is traceable, he said.

E-mail Angie Hanson

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