Afilias Discovery Services' Ali Rezafard will be a panel member at:

Session 7: Governance and public policy

Who is responsible for naming and identifying the IOT within Europe? What are the defining set of principles and regulation underlying the governance of IOT? How can an open, independent, transparent and accountable governance of the internet be created? The European Commission suggests that private companies should continue to take the lead in the day-to-day management of the operation of the internet, as long as they are accountable and independent. What is the role for public authorities and how can an architecture be set up with a sufficient level of decentralised management so that European public authorities can exercise their responsibilities as regards transparency, competition and accountability? What policy tools should be exercised to ensure stakeholders are accountable?

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A recent recall of Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP) has once again reinforced the harmful effects of a disconnected supply chain.  HVP is an ingredient found in many spices, sauces, and mixes, products which are themselves used in millions of foods.  Recalls such as these can severely affect consumer brand confidence.   Because of the broken chains in our traceability system, many more brands are affected because most food manufacturers cannot see where all of the contaminated products have come from upstream nor can they see what products have been affected downstream.  There are things that can be done today, however, to enable clearer visibility along the supply chain and to help you get ready for a future National Traceability System, as proposed by the U.S. Congress.  As a provider of traceability services, Afilias has some best practice recommendations for you for establishing a framework to help you view your product data from farm to fork.

Establish an identifier strategy.  A unique identifier can be used to differentiate your product to improve visibility.  Some examples of unique identifier technologies include livestock ear tags, RFID chips, 2D data matrix barcodes and serialized ID numbers, such as an Ipv6 address.  There are 3 important considerations that should be address when establishing an identifier strategy that works best for you and that will make traceability easier to implement.

1. Your identifiers should be standards-based.  This will enable your organization to more easily and clearly communicate with others down the supply chain in a uniform way.  Most standards recommended for use today have the ability to hold multiple  data points that are critical to traceability.  For example, a standardized serial ID number can tell us the birth date, order, and location of an animal.
2. Your identifiers should be unique.  The more specific an identifier is, the better.  Being able to uniquely identify each of your products or each of the ingredients going into your product can prevent delays and loss of non-contaminated product in the event of a recall.  If applying a unique identifier to your product or ingredient is cost prohibitive or infeasible at this time, even applying a unique identifier to a lot number is a great start that will significantly increase the amount of useful data and create a more detailed history of each product.   Once this is established, it will be far more economical in the future to begin to drill down further, should regulations mandate it.
3. You should consider relevant industry or association recommendations.  If there is already a standard adopted by your industry, we would strongly recommend using it.  Uniformity of identifiers in a product category and supply chain can ease traceability and visibility.  This will enable you to more easily communicate data with those in your supply chain, should you want to, to prevent unnecessary harm to consumers and to minimize the loss of non-contaminated product.

 

Collect and Store your Data.  Choose a data collection and storage system that works for your organization’s needs and capabilities.  Many organizations create their own in-house solutions, or choose from one of the options available on the market.  Whichever works best for you, it is important to make sure that your solution enables you to keep an up-to-date database of your products, their identification properties, and the ability to store movement at least one or two steps up or down the supply chain.    

Comply with a National Traceability System.  Afilias’ Discovery Services is a traceability solution that fits the above criteria and will provide you visibility for your product that will allow you to comply with the National Traceability System that is being proposed by Congress.  In effect, it works much the same way as a Web search engine does searching for the unique identifiers associated with contaminated products.  Discovery Services can work with any of the standardized identifiers discussed and, in the event of a recall, can easily find each specific product no matter what kind of identifier it is.  The more unique the identifier, the more specific the ADS results will be.  In addition, ADS provides enhanced security allowing visibility only into specified information.  Each participant along the supply chain can choose to share only relevant data with partners and be confident that it will remain unshared with competitors.

Establishing full Farm-to-Fork traceability will enable us to more quickly and accurately get the full history of product data along the entire supply chain when a recall occurs.  We can get the RIGHT foods off the shelves and off of consumer’s plates giving them the confidence that they are feeding their families safe, healthy meals.

Afilias will be exhibiting at the 2010 Food Safety Summit in Washington, DC.  Stop by booth #727 to learn how Afilias Discovery Services enables true end to end traceability in the supply chain!

Afilias Discovery Services VP, Brian Cute, will be speaking on the panel: Traceability - Supply Chain Wide Adoption of Electronic Traceability.  The panel will be held Tuesday, April 13th at 1:45 pm in the Exhibit Hall Theatre A.

Afilias is a silver sponsor of the 6th Annual North American Summit on Food Safety. Afilias' Ali Rezafard will be featured on a panel discussion on Tuesday, March 9th at 2:15 p.m. entitled "Best practices in tracing food and pathogens to provide quicker recalls that are more efficient". Visit our booth to discuss how Afilias Discovery Services can provide complete and secure end-to-end traceability in a supply chain. 

Hearing explores reform of U.S. food safety system; sets stage for Senate action this year

WASHINGTON – October 22, 2009 – The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee today held a hearing to discuss S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act and specific proposals for food safety reforms. Brian Cute, Vice President of Discovery Services for Afilias, a global provider of end-to-end supply chain traceability services, issued the following statement applauding the Committee’s effort and progress made toward establishing a national traceability system for food.

“Today was an important morning for food safety and it is encouraging that the committee is working on legislation that will create a national food tracing system. The establishment of a robust and effective food tracing system will provide the FDA with the information it needs to conduct targeted and effective recalls, protect industry from losses, and most importantly, restore Americans’ confidence in their food supply.

“As a top priority, S.510 must enable government, industry and technologists to work together through pilot projects to develop a scalable and interoperable food traceability system that ensures all players in the food supply chain will embrace technologies to meet the traceability requirements set out in the bill. As a traceability technology provider, Afilias looks forward to working with the Congress and the FDA and providing our expertise through pilot projects to demonstrate which technologies available today will best deliver ‘farm to fork’ traceability and make a national tracing system a reality.

“The House-passed food safety bill, H.R. 2749, makes great strides toward this end, including the establishment of pilots within the industry to develop a national tracing system. Afilias looks forward to the Senate taking a similar approach in its bill and hope that adequate funding and resources will follow to make these pilot projects possible.”

S. 510, FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, the Senate’s food safety reform bill that has garnered the most attention, contains provisions that require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a pilot project to test and evaluate new methods for rapidly and effectively tracking/tracing fruits and vegetables in the event of a food-borne illness outbreak. Earlier this year, the House passed its version of food safety legislation, H.R. 2749, Food Safety Enhancement Act. H.R. 2749 contains more robust traceability provisions, in particular, requiring the Food and Drug Administration to issue regulations that require food producers, manufacturers, processors, transporters, or holders to maintain the full pedigree of the origin and previous distribution history of the food and to link that history with the subsequent distribution history of the food. It also establishes an interoperable record to ensure fast and efficient traceback. Prior to issuing such regulations, FDA would be required to conduct a feasibility study, public meetings, and pilot projects.

The Senate HELP committee will now work to schedule a markup of S.510.

About Afilias
Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias' reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Service.

About Afilias Discovery Services
Afilias Discovery Services is a standards-based hosted registry service providing true end-to-end traceability. ADS allows you to securely and selectively share "track and trace" information.  Fully interoperable and identifier agnostic, with ADS you can conduct surgically precise product recalls, improving consumer safety and confidence while reducing business impacts.

Afilias Discovery Services will be at booth 4319 at the Produce Marketing Association's 2009 Fresh Summit.  Stop by to learn how Discovery Services provide full end-to-end traceability in the supply chain.

Dublin, Ireland - 18 August 2009 - Afilias, a global provider of internet infrastructure services, today announced that Ali Rezafard, the lead member in the development and implementation of Afilias' Discovery Services platform, has been selected to chair the Software Action Group at EPCglobal. 

EPCglobal leads the development of industry-driven standards for the Electronic Product Code^TM (EPC) to support the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in implementing traceability technology for supply chains.  The EPCglobal Software Action Group (SAG) works to define software interface and other standards both within EPCglobal network elements as well as between elements from other enterprise systems.

 "Quick, accurate, and secure traceability of information through the supply chain is extremely necessary in today's world of food and product recalls," said Mr. Rezafard.  I am excited to be able to provide my expertise from Afilias to ensure that the EPCglobal standards are further developed to address the international need for interoperable supply chain track-and-trace technologies."

Mr. Rezafard has been with Afilias since 2007 as a Solutions Architect for Afilias' Discovery Services which provides secure and selective visibility services to global supply chain participants.  Mr. Rezafard's co-chair on the SAG is David Husak, CTO of Reva Systems who participates on other EPCglobal teams including the hardware (HAG) and business (BAG) action groups.

About Afilias Discovery Services

Afilias Discovery Services is a standards-based hosted registry service providing true end-to-end traceability. ADS allows you to securely and selectively share "track and trace" information.  Fully interoperable and identifier agnostic, with ADS you can conduct surgically precise product recalls, improving consumer safety and confidence while reducing business impacts. For additional information visit www.afilias.info/ads

About Afilias

Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias' reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Service. For additional information please visit http://www.afilias.info/.

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H.R. 2749 to create a national tracing system for food from ‘farm to fork’

Washington, D.C. – On a second attempt at passage, the U.S. House successfully voted in favor of legislation to reform a food safety system that has been battered by a lack of consumer confidence and numerous food recalls over the past few years.

Brian Cute, Vice President of Discovery Services for Afilias, a global provider of end-to-end supply chain traceability services, today issued the following statement regarding passage of H.R. 2749, Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.

“This comprehensive bill has the muscle and resources to help FDA modernize our antiquated food safety system. It will help prevent the more than 5,000 annual deaths related to food borne illness in the U.S. and protect Americans from exposure to contaminated foods.

“Today, the U.S. does not have any way to trace the origins of food from ‘farm to fork’ nor the ability to conduct targeted and precise recalls – the crucial missing piece of the food safety puzzle. And for years, consumers and the food industry have suffered from slow and ineffective investigative efforts and broad recalls, costing the country millions of dollars in lost product, and breeding distrust in consumers.

“The traceability pilots proposed in the bill seek to refine our food safety system, setting the foundation for collaboration between government and industry to determine which technologies available today will deliver a reliable and efficient tracing system to benefit all Americans. Now is the time for members of the food supply chain to embrace technologies that will help them deliver on their traceability requirements. Of paramount importance, these technologies should be developed upon global uniform standards and ensure interoperability across all supply chain members, both domestic and international.

“Afilias commends the House for supporting this bill and taking swift action on this issue of national importance and asks the Senate to likewise recognize the urgency for food safety reform this year.”

Among the reforms proposed in the bill, the Food Safety Enhancement Act requires the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to establish a tracing system to trace the origin of tainted food in the event of an outbreak of food borne illness. Prior to issuing regulations, FDA would be required to conduct a feasibility study, public meetings, and a technology pilot project.

H.R. 2749 will now move to the Senate for consideration along with other proposed food safety bills.

About Afilias Discovery Services
Afilias Discovery Services is a standards-based hosted registry service providing true end-to-end traceability. ADS allows you to securely and selectively share "track and trace" information.  Fully interoperable and identifier agnostic, with ADS you can conduct surgically precise product recalls, improving consumer safety and confidence while reducing business impacts.

About Afilias
Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias' reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Service.

Committee passes H.R. 2749, Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009; bill moves to House

Washington, D.C. - Brian Cute, Vice President of Discovery Services for Afilias, a global provider of end-to-end supply chain traceability services, today issued the following statement regarding the House Energy and Commerce Committee markup of food safety legislation, titled "H.R. 2749, Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009."

"The Energy and Commerce Committee's approval of H.R. 2749 marks a significant step forward in a monumental but critical effort to improve the safety of our food, modernize our food safety system, and protect Americans from exposure to food-borne illness. The traceability provisions and technology pilots included in the legislation are essential to the creation of a ‘farm to fork' tracing system for our food supply. H.R. 2749 will enable food safety agencies to conduct targeted recalls and ultimately deliver true ‘end-to-end' traceability within U.S. food supply chains, which is so important in keeping Americans safe, and healthy. Afilias thanks the Committee for working cooperatively with stakeholders across the nation to develop a comprehensive bill that addresses the U.S. food safety crisis. We encourage lawmakers to support this legislation and ensure quick passage in the House."

For more information about H.R. 2749 and Committee markup, visit this link.

For more information about Afilias Discovery Services, traceability technologies or to speak with Brian Cute, please contact David Mayorga at 202-683-3118 or dmayorga@qorvis.com

About Afilias

Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias' reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Service. For additional information please visit http://www.afilias.info/. 

About Afilias Discovery Services

Afilias Discovery Services is a standards-based hosted registry service providing true end-to-end traceability. ADS allows you to securely and selectively share "track and trace" information.  Fully interoperable and identifier agnostic, with ADS you can conduct surgically precise product recalls, improving consumer safety and confidence while reducing business impacts. For additional information visit www.afilias.info/ads

Legislation sets stage for "end-to-end" traceability in U.S. food supply chains

Washington, D.C. - Brian Cute, Vice President of Discovery Services for Afilias, today issued the following statement in response to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health markup of food safety legislation, titled "H.R. 2749, Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009."

"Today's markup of H.R. 2749 signals a significant commitment by the U.S. Congress to overhaul and strengthen our food safety system and restore consumer confidence. It is time to modernize our 20^th century system to meet the needs and demands of a 21^st century food supply. The food traceability provisions and technology pilots proposed in this legislation will set the stage for the establishment of a U.S. system to trace foods from ‘farm to fork,' enable food safety agencies to conduct targeted recalls, and ultimately achieve true ‘end to end' traceability within our food supply chains. We urge the Congress to quickly move this legislation forward to protect consumers and bring much needed reform to the U.S. food safety system."

For more information on this pending legislation, visit the Subcommittee on Health website.

For more information about Afilias Discovery Services or to speak with Brian Cute, please contact David Mayorga at 202-683-3118 or dmayorga@qorvis.com

About Afilias

Afilias is a global provider of Internet infrastructure services that connect people to their data. Afilias' reliable, secure, scalable, and globally available technology supports a wide range of applications including Internet domain registry services, Managed DNS, and services in the RFID and supply chain market with its Afilias Discovery Service. For additional information please visit http://www.afilias.info/. 

About Afilias Discovery Services

Afilias Discovery Services is a standards-based hosted registry service providing true end-to-end traceability. ADS allows you to securely and selectively share "track and trace" information.  Fully interoperable and identifier agnostic, with ADS you can conduct surgically precise product recalls, improving consumer safety and confidence while reducing business impacts. For additional information visit www.afilias.info/ads