GFSI Conference

Food System Resilience – Establishing and Maintaining Sustainable and Safe Food Systems

Crises and shocks to our food systems challenge all of us. At the most severe end of the spectrum, shocks to our food system can result in malnutrition and food insecurity. Closer to the other end of the spectrum, food system crises have resulted in relentless supply chain disruptions, galloping inflation and continued labor challenges. Food system shocks have both known and unknown consequences. For example, the primary known impact of a shock to a food system may be on the quantity and quality of food produced, while outcomes can be as serious as food insecurity and adverse food safety events impacting human health.

Join us for this panel discussion as we explore food safety risks linked to challenging levels of resilience. Delegates will hear first-hand from front-line industry experts on what their companies are doing to proactively manage resilience and to establish their new normal. Specifically, attendees will learn how manufacturers and retailers are:
• Absorbing and recovering from supply chain disruptions,
• Anticipating and preventing food safety events,
• Finding the balance between “just-in-time” and “just-in-case,”
• Becoming more agile in the last 24 – 36 months to tackle today’s challenges,
• Establishing their new normal for future success.

Laying the Foundation for Trust: # Keys to Transform Food Safety & Quality

Leveraging GS1 Standards to Meet Key Food Safety Challenges: Fulfilling FSMA Traceability Final Rule Requirements, Augmenting Supply Chain Visibility, Agility and Resilience

This session will focus on the crucial need to build more agile, resilient supply chain operations to maintain safe, sustainable food delivery even when disruptions occur, or new challenges arise. Learn how the adoption and implementation of GS1 standards enables automated information exchange between supply chain partners to support increased transparency and faster, more efficient planning and response to unexpected impacts.

Moderated by Siobhan O’Bara, SVP Community Engagement, GS1 US, panelists will discuss new measures that would help bring resilience to supply chains, minimize disruptions and help address heightened requirements for food safety, distribution efficiency, traceability and sustainability. Hear from industry leaders on how digital technologies enhance current processes and how, when these technologies are combined with GS1 standards, they can bring future-proof transformations to international trade that will survive normal times and crises alike.

Supply chain sustainability is a growing concern, revolving around issues like ingredient sourcing, environmental impacts, and consumer demand for information addressing their concerns about health, safety and social and environmental impacts. In addition, the global food industry is focused on the need for increased traceability to ensure food safety. Find out how GS1 standards can be leveraged to meet both of these critical, future-focused requirements.

In this session, we will discuss:

• Why GS1 Standards are needed to harmonize supply chain data, support traceability and sustainability requirements.
• How the new Traceability Rule implements FSMA Section 204(d) and supports FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Traceability Blueprint, as well as other traceability initiatives.
• How trading partners are collaborating in their supply chains to drive visibility, agility and resilience.
• How GS1 standards can be leveraged to meet these key challenges.

In this first session of Track 1, you will get to meet members of the GFSI Steering Committee who are leading the delivery of the benchmarking and harmonisation strategy and those responsible for GFSI Governance. Since the creation of GFSI as a Coalition of Action within the CGF in 2021, driving improvements in every aspect of the work that GFSI does has been front and centre of their work.

Attendees will learn:
• Valuable insights into what is behind the drive for change.
• Progress made so far and what is going to come next.

In this first session of Track 2, you will get to meet those members of the GFSI Steering Committee who are leading the delivery of the capability building strategy for FBOs. The outcome of this work is to enable improvements in the FSMS of non GFSI certified FBOs such that they are able to achieve GFSI certification and /or regulatory compliance resulting in safer food for consumers everywhere. The pivotal role that GFSI intends to play in delivering food safety outcomes with a new ambition for capability building around the world will be explained and the outcomes from the past 12 months of work from the Sub Committee will be presented in detail from protecting the GFSI brand to updating the current Global Markets Programme toolkits to preparing the future capability building blueprint and engaging with key stakeholders to design and deliver it.

Attendees will learn:
• What is behind the work of the Sub Committee.
• What inputs have gone into the work on the proposed new capability building approach.
• What this work means for improving food safety capability globally.

In this first session of Track 3, you will meet members of the GFSI Steering Committee who are leading the delivery of the Public Private Partnership strategy and outcome that food safety regulators trust that GFSI certification can be used for risk-based resource allocation. The vital role that regulators play in delivering food safety outcomes around the world is not always well understood. The distinction between regulatory policy and the delivery of regulatory interventions is an area of huge importance for GFSI. During this session, the GFSI steering committee will present its vision and strategy to deliver GFSI strategic outcomes on public-private partnerships.

Attendees will learn:
• About the complementary work GFSI is doing to support the successful delivery of national food control systems.
• How global harmonisation through CODEX is key and how by working together with regulators GFSI aims to deliver its mission of safe food for people everywhere.