Tracking a food product through its entire supply chain can prove to be a difficult task, especially in the midst of a disease outbreak or other emergency, but Queen’s University alum Brian Sterling is trying to make it less complicated.
Sterling recently helped launch the Global Food Traceability Center, a forum designed to engage key stakeholders and strengthen the global food supply, started by the Chicago-based Institute of Food Technologists (IFT).
The Center, still in its early stages, aims to provide practical solutions to the challenges of tracing food products and to make existing systems more transparent for consumers. It is offering advice and training, conducting research, and drawing together partners from academia, the food industry, regulatory bodies, and consumer groups.
For Sterling, a more coordinated global system of food traceability benefits consumers, public health, and businesses by allowing companies to react quickly and efficiently when something goes wrong, which helps their bottom lines, and allowing a stronger, quicker and reliable response to food emergencies.
For more information, visit the Queen’s Alum Review.
