Food Portal has launched the Food Portal Supplier Directory for the benefit of the global food industry.
The Food Portal Supplier Directory is a free service that offers all food manufacturers the ability to upload assurance evidence to their company profile, which they can share with their customers by providing them with their organization ID.
The food supply chain is made up of thousands of manufacturers. Traditionally, each manufacturer has had to maintain approval of its suppliers by emailing them individually with requests for update – and has had to respond to similar email requests received from its customers at every accreditation renewal. Depending on the complexity of each manufacturer’s supply chain, and the number of customers serviced, this can add up to an absolutely staggering amount of time and resources spent just on supplier assurance functions.
This need to share assurance evidence can be completely satisfied through the Food Portal Supplier Directory. Each manufacturer can simply maintain their own profile with up-to-date assurance evidence, and all of their customers have access to the documents they need as a result.
There is no limit to the amount or type of assurance evidence that food manufacturers can upload to their company profiles, meaning the Food Portal Supplier Directory presents a universal solution for any site approval documents that need to be exchanged from suppliers to customers.
Director of Innovation, Duncan Lacey, spoke on the topic: “I’ve done supplier assurance work on behalf of a few different food manufacturers, and this has always struck me as an area with a lot of potential for improvement. The number of email requests for updated accreditations just seems wasteful. With Food Portal being independent of any particular compliance scheme, the platform is uniquely positioned to offer this service and it feels really good to see this in place.”
The introduction of the Food Portal Supplier Directory as a free service is the latest move by Food Portal to provide tools and systems for food manufacturers – with other free resources offered by the company including:
- An anonymized food safety and quality culture survey;
- A range of articles written for food manufacturers;
- A confidential reporting/whistleblowing service;
- A collection of links and resources for technical and quality professionals; and
- A scheduled prompt for horizon scanning
“We look at all of this as an opportunity to make life easier for professionals who work in the food industry,” Duncan explained. “Food Portal is here to serve the food industry. We can do that by providing technology to food manufacturers on a membership basis, and we can do that by making resources openly available to food industry professionals on the website. We’re passionate about bringing positive change and I’m excited to see Food Portal bringing these updates into effect.”
Food Portal is a web platform providing software services to the global food industry. For more information, visit the website: Food-Portal.co.uk.
