Avoid the Next Big Recall

Many retailers and restaurant companies have been forced to become crisis communications experts over the past two decades. But what if instead of focusing on managing the aftermaths of these recalls, retailers focused on preventing them?

That’s exactly what iCiX is trying to do, says Matt Mosman, CEO of the San Mateo, Calif., technology firm.

iCix allows corporations to share critical documentation throughout the supply chain and validate information with trading partners. More than 70,000 facilities utilize the iCiX online network, including six of the top 10 retailers and 82 of the top 100 food companies. Users include Costco, Walmart, PETCO, Mario Camacho Foods and Spartan Stores, and many retailers mandate suppliers use iCiX for liability purposes.

“The set-up process to add suppliers has been really smooth,” says Chuck Behrend, director of risk management for Spartan Stores, the nation’s 11th-largest grocery distributor. “iCiX communicates with us daily to keep us in the loop on progress and answers any integration questions we may have. This is the kind of partnership you want when adopting a system to manage your company’s risk, compliance and standards.”

Verification
iCiX reduces the uncertainty that stems from keeping track of audits, certifications and ancillary information relating to test results, Mosman says. The industry-wide approach allows suppliers to securely share certificates and data with all their trading partners, and helps reduce redundant certifications and costs throughout the supply chain.

“As a buyer, I want to see documentation before you ship,” Mosman says. If a peach supplier is claiming to be USDA Certified Organic, the iCiX network can ensure a third-party audit verifies the documentation. “A supplier can claim all they want, but if the documentation is not there, it’s not there.”

Mosman says this quality assurance system will reveal if a supplier is making false claims about certification, audits or past due compliance tests. In the past, this information has been validated through a lengthy paper trail that was vulnerable to serious human error.

Perhaps no recent incident has been more alarming than the egg recalls; the egg vendors in question were out of compliance with standard FDA guidelines, Mosman says.

“Not one of our customers utilizing the iCiX Validated Certificate Management System received tainted eggs,” he says. “And even if someone had gotten tainted eggs, our recall system helps our customers affect a complete recall in an average of 2.1 hours — not days, hours.”

Another example, he says, is the Peanut Corporation of America, which went out of business in 2009. Plant audits were proven insufficient or unreliable leading up to the salmonella outbreak that sickened an estimated 700 and led to the recall of some 3,900 products from some the nation’s largest retailers.

With the increasing use of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, retailers and suppliers are more likely to use the simple iCiX interface, Mosman says. He attributes personal social networking as one of the many reasons for the widespread adoption of iCiX.

Mosman estimates that more than 30 percent of all major suppliers are in the network. “If I post an insurance certificate or kosher certificate to the network, it’s available in a secure way to the people who have rights to see it,” he says. “I don’t have to post it 300 times,” reducing cost and boosting security.

Without a supply chain safety network, he says, “your brand is at risk” for the next outbreak – whatever it might be.