Coke recall highlights need for complete traceability

Coca-Cola recalled its bottled water brand Dasani last week after finding samples that contained higher than permitted levels of the chemical bromate. The recall of over half a million bottles in the UK took less than 24 hours, and although deeply embarrassing for the soft drinks giant, the recall could have been much more damaging had the company not put in place adequate traceability measures.

"The general comment about this Coca-Cola recall was that it was very efficient,"​Simon Lawson, Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) account manager with systems integrator Capula, told FoodProductionDaily.com.​ "Not many companies are as efficient as that, and this could have ramifications with EU legislation on traceability coming into force in 2005.​

This legislation states that food manufacturers have to be able to show that they can trace products right through the food chain.

"A lot of companies will have traceability systems in place by then, but the problem is that they are often manually linked,"​ said Lawson. "The problem is speed, and this is becoming apparent as expectations are raised. In the US, the Bioterrorism Act obliges manufacturers to be able to respond in four hours, and this is colouring expectations in the UK."​

Coca-Cola was able to efficiently recall its products because it had MES in place, a concept that describes the integration of business systems with plant control systems to give a company overall automatic control of its operations.

"A recall is just not something that a human can deal with quickly,"​ said Lawson. "But this is what a computer-based system can do well."​

Companies like Capula​ manage traceability projects for companies - they show manufacturers how best to install MES systems and what technology to use. Lawson is keen to raise awareness of the business, as he believes some companies will be going into 2005 unprepared for the new legislative requirements.

"I think that a lot of food and beverage manufacturers will have a rude awakening in the New Year,"​ said Lawson. "Traceability will more than effectively be enforced by the public and supermarkets, and they'll find that system integrators will be in short supply."​

It is therefore in both the manufacturer's and the retailer's long-term interest to invest in systems that can trace products from start to finish. The cost of compensation or a product recall means that the cost of installing MES is less of a factor than it ever was.

This is something that Matthew Holland, MES product manager for Siemens UK is very much aware of. "All these drivers - legislation, consumer concerns, supermarket pressure - mean that if you can put a system in place that will enable you to act react better to demands, make your manufacturing process more agile and make you better suited to retailers and consumers, then you will,"​ he told FoodProductionDaily.com​ last week.

Lawson agrees. "In the UK, automatic traceability is still seen as an overhead. But if you think of traceability as part of MES, then you can mitigate traceability costs through improvements in efficiency. This is the message that needs to go out to manufacturers. They need joined-up thinking."​

It is clear that Coca-Cola has taken this point to heart. "A few years back the company was forced to issue a recall after wood preserve seeped into a vending machine,"​ said Holland. "This cost them over $100 million, because no system was in place then that could trace the product back quick enough."​

In a statement, Coca-Cola said that the recent contamination of Dasani water had been initially caused by its regular practice of adding calcium to the product, calcium which in this case "did not meet our quality standards".​ As a result, bromate went on to be formed during the manufacturing processes.

The UK limit for bromate in bottled and tap water is 10 parts per billion, while the Dasani samples had tested between 10 and 22 parts per billions, Reuters reported.