Dr Peter Stevens explains the launch of a National Recall Portal.

In my last column I mentioned that we use the corporate version of Gmail.

Although not perfect, one of the cool features it has is what I like to call the “*&%^&, pull it back!” function. What this does is turn on a slight and unnoticeable time delay in sending any email so you can ‘pull it back’ without embarrassment. This really helps if you realise you’ve made a mistake soon after you’ve pushed the ‘send button’!

If manufacturers of products are lucky, problems are picked up during or just after manufacturing when the product is still under their control. Sometimes QA miss something, or consumption/use of the product in the market uncovers a problem. If it’s a small problem that does not give concern for health or safety, a trade withdrawal can occur; where the problem is more serious a recall must be undertaken. Either way, a critical success factor is downstream notification to trade partners and consumers and monitoring to ensure that product is ‘pulled back’.

Unfortunately, in the NZ (and global) environment the processes around pulling-it-back are not as easy or streamlined as many would like. The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, with assistance from the NZ Ministry of Consumer Affairs, looked at this in a landmark report in 2010 and highlighted this fact.

In the NZ environment a workgroup involving Cadbury, DB Breweries, Fonterra Brands, Foodstuffs, Goodman Fielder, Kimberly-Clark, Nestlé, Progressive Enterprises, the NZ Food & Grocery Council and the Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry (MAF) has been working on a sophisticated national recall solution over the past 12 months. The new service, to be called ProductRecallNZ, will be launched in April 2012 in collaboration with major food and grocery suppliers, both major supermarket retailers (Foodstuffs, Progressive Enterprises) and MAF.

For industry this will be a welcome innovation and improve the efficiency of removing potentially harmful grocery, food, liquor and other products from the supply chain. As Dianne Bird, quality assurance manager for DB Breweries, comments: “A recall/withdrawal can be a stressful time for a manufacturer, especially as it is a process that is seldom put into practice. An industry-wide solution to assist in this area is long overdue.”

GS1 ProductRecallNZ will enable manufacturers and suppliers to share real-time recall and withdrawal notifications with their trading partners in a secure and targeted manner and offer:

• a single, industry-based recall and withdrawal process, aligned with the requirements of the regulator

• an easy and intuitive workflow that makes the process of issuing and managing notifications simpler and without duplication of effort

• the ability to target notifications to selected companies with tailored information

• lower risks and costs in the execution of recalls with associated brand protection

• recipients of notifications (primarily retailers) will have an electronic notification point, with appropriate audit trails replacing the ‘kaleidoscope’ of emails, faxes and phone calls prevalent now.

Once operational, it is intended that ProductRecallNZ will become the defacto tool used by New Zealand’s major retailers to support product recall and withdrawals. (Note: using ProductRecallNZ does not replace any statutory obligations associated with a recall – you may still have to take out one of those advertisements with the diagonal strips around them in the major newspapers.)

Early indications are that “ProductRecallNZ will bring the New Zealand FMCG sector more into line with international trading partners and provide consistency of process for NZ manufacturers and suppliers who need to activate a withdrawal or recall with their respective retail networks”, says Mark Bell, national compliance and food safety manager for Progressive Enterprises.

Perhaps after April, it will be much easier and cheaper to ‘pull it back’ – just like my email service!

To find out more please send an email to ProductRecallNZ@gs1nz.org or phone GS1 New Zealand on 0800 10 23 56.