DUBLIN, CA - On the heels of this year’s successful CPMA event, our minds are all aflutter with exciting people to reach out to. A company that is stepping into the limelight is iTrade, a software company that makes transparency for the supply chain easy and reliable.

I stole a moment with Product Manager for Trace and Fresh Products, Trey Ruello and Customer Success Manager and Senior Systems Engineer for Trace Products, Jason Varni, who caught me up to speed with the company’s latest focus and what lies ahead for the booming industry interest.

“Within the U.S., Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) standards have been mostly set—there is essentially a base-level of what everyone within the industry wants to see. But that hasn’t been finalized in Canada yet. A lot of that discussion was around what that baseline should be, what should be included, what should be excluded, and what can be optional,” Trey says. “Another discussion that is ongoing—from PMA to CPMA—is about what the potential applications are for blockchain within the industry. There was much discussion about what blockchain is and how it is applicable to produce and traceability initiatives.”

There is much more on the horizon, too, with the potential for Canadian labeling requirements rumored to be in the works. After CPMA, though, the company is highlighting its efforts to provide traceability through its Transit software.

“The first solution that was released on the new version of our traceability platform is Transit, and it’s much more of a lightweight solution," Trey explains. "For customers within our industry, like Walmart, looking for palletized advanced shipment notices to be sent electronically when orders are loaded and ready to ship, via Transit they will know what is on that load, the critical traceability information for those products, and when it was shipped. Our service is designed to make the process as painless as possible.”

Transit’s success can be seen in the companies that use the program, regardless of size. From Walmart to small ma-and-pop shops, those who are using the program are finding that it works for their needs and makes transparency easier than ever to achieve, Trey tells me. The creation of this solution meets the needs of many suppliers in the industry, Jason adds.

“Something that our customers value is that iTrade, in the past, has taken its time to develop dependable solutions, and what we did this time is create a solution for customers’ needs quickly, from design to build and completed product,” Jason shares. “It’s been great to see how customers have been reacting to this option.”

The great results that Transit has seen in the past have led the company to think of new ways to implement strategies within other aspects of the supply chain, refreshing three offerings on its new traceability platform. Enter: Label, Item, and Load—three separate solutions that the company is launching this year.

“We rebuilt, from the ground up, our entire traceability solution offerings for our customers. It’s focused on three primary products: Label, Item, and Load,” Trey shares with me. “We’ve got the ability for users to use these offerings on existing company devices, rather than having to purchase something solely for our platform.”

The solutions, available via native app on both Android and iOS, assist with the following supply chain aspects:

• Label: PTI labeling solution and data capture tool
• Item: individual consumer unit-based traceability solution and consumer outreach
• Load: upgraded version of the functionality formally provided by our WMS tool which tracks the product from the cutting in the field to the customers’ coolers

The goal for these programs, Jason shares, is both back-to-the-basics in logic and nuanced in technological advances—what these programs provide is added functionality and enhanced, flexible workflows.

Both Label and Item will be available later this month, while customers will have to wait until July to dive into the ease that the new version of Load offers.

The company’s latest launches are a great reflection of the sturdy foundation that Transit and iTrade’s current industry-leading solutions have created, and, moving forward, there is more room to prop up the industry for unparalleled growth, intel, supply chain transparency and efficiency.

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