Agrian’s President Richard Machado Explains How New Demands for Data Require a Paperless Approach
Food processors are facing a new set of challenges today. Pressures, driven by food safety concerns, sustainability programs, and issues surrounding exports like constantly changing maximum residue levels, are creating demands on processors like never before—demands to produce and manage something else: data.
Food processors today need to have reliable, accurate, and documented data from their growers available at the drop of a hat to protect their brand and their standing in the market. Electronic data collection, management, and sharing all help everyone along the food chain trace commodity inputs—from field to fork.
And it’s not easy. Food processors often work with hundreds of growers, crop consultants, and crop input applicators. Agrian provides simplification to this complex challenge: a centralized system that streamlines communication among all constituents, allowing everyone to push their information into a single repository. With more than 200,000 users, Agrian is the food processing industry's premier choice for recording, tracking, and sharing information.
Agrian has become an indispensable tool for grower management by many food processors’ field departments. It enables a food processor to track cultural practices during the growing season in order to dynamically and securely share field-level crop data among growers, processors, and government reporting agencies—with pinpoint accuracy. We call it the ‘network effect.’ Growers, crop consultants, and applicators can simply log into Agrian’s web-based service and share product-use reports directly with food processors. These electronic submissions eliminate the need for repetitive data entry and paperwork.
One of the results of the Food Safety Modernization Act is an increase in the number of food safety audits being conducted. Collecting field data is more onerous—and important—than ever before for food processors. Ensuring that field activities meet compliance requirements hugely impacts processors’ bottom lines.
And in managing the data demands needed for compliance reporting, Agrian helps mitigate risk. Growers and processors know exactly which crop protection products were used, the dates applied, and other essential application. The Agrian database is the largest manufacturer-indemnified database in the world, with more than 11,000 indexed labels featuring crop-specific rates, re-entry and preharvest intervals. It’s an invaluable tool to check against any standards or controls established internally and your trusted defense against human error.
For the food processor, Agrian’s web- and subscription-based service means no expensive new software and efficient implementation. An Agrian processor account has special capabilities designed for food processors and offers several clear benefits:
Grower Management
Agrian takes communications among food processors, growers, crop consultants, and applicators, and allows everyone to use one system to push their information into a single place. It's an easy, flexible solution—an Agrian processor account can be linked with any grower, crop consultant, or applicator that uses the system. Processors pay only to communicate with those who use the Agrian solution.
Looking for quick answers on food safety topics?
Try Ask FSM, our new smart AI search tool.
Ask FSM →
Compliance
For processors, harvest time means a flurry of activity—and a blizzard of paperwork. Agrian streamlines the electronic transmission of data and provides a robust electronic compliance check on all the data submitted at harvest and throughout the season. The Agrian solution reduces risk by removing the human element in checking to make sure that label instructions, government regulations, and cultural practices were correctly followed.
Mobility
Agrian Mobile (available via iPhone or iPad app) allows grower reps to develop customized record keeping and/or cultural practices programs that are easily accessible by growers, crop consultants, and applicators in the office and directly in the field. From their mobile device, users can access Agrian’s label database and field data—map, track, and record notes on each visit to the growing site during the season.
To learn more about Agrian and our capabilities, visit Agrian.com or email us at sales@agrian.com.
