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This week has seen the latest in a series of food contamination scares. These crises highlight the need for a significant tightening up of the identification, tracking and tracing of our food products right up to the point of sale. The common issue underpinning all recalls is the ability to accurately identify the affected products and securely withdraw them from sale. 

A solution in the form of a bar code is available to retailers and suppliers to identify fresh produce at the point of sale. GS1 DataBar is a new generation bar code symbol, scannable at the point of sale, thereby enabling retailers to block the sale of recalled items. GS1 DataBar is already in widespread use for fresh produce marking in retail grocery stores across North America.

For over 30 years GS1 has promoted the use of bar code solutions to deliver efficiency and accuracy at point of sale and across the supply chain. GS1 believes that producers and retailers in Ireland could benefit by implementing GS1 DataBar in order to secure the fresh produce supply chain as well as achieving improved  stock rotation, reducing shrinkage and enabling accurate point of sale markdowns for short life products.

Jim Bracken, CEO GS1 Ireland