food-producing animal or substance intended to be or expected to be incorporated into a
food or feed, through all stages of production, processing and distribution .” (E.U.
General Food Law Reg. EC No. 178/2002). Bailey (2005) finds E.U. definition too
detailed for U.S. and suggests the following “the efficient and rapid tracking of physical
product and traits from and to critical points of origin or destination in the food chain
necessary to achieve specific food safety and/or quality assurance goals.” He argues that
this alternative definition would allow traceability to be customized by specific industries
and firms to meet specific goals for food safety or other types of quality assurances. In
this report, we use the word “traceability” in broad sense as the ability to trace and track
the flow of product or product attributes through the production or supply chain.
Some aspects of traceability notion also need to be defined. External traceability refers to
traceability of product or product attributes through the successive stages of production
(e.g. cow-calf producer, auction barn, feedlot, slaughter and processing). Whereas,
internal traceability refers to traceability within the plant or productive unit, which may
be a part of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) plans. External traceability
may require some degree of internal traceability (Lupin, 2006). Chain traceability refers
to traceability throughout the entire food chain. Backward traceability, traceback, or
tracing is defined as “the ability to identify the origin of a particular unit and/or batch of
product located within the supply chain by reference to records held upstream” (New
Zealand Trade and Enterprise, 2006). Forward traceability, traceforward, traceup, or
tracking is defined as “the ability to follow the path of a specified unit of a product and/or
batch through the supply chain as it moves between organizations toward the final point-
of-sale or point-of-service” (New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, 2006).
Traceability is often interchangeably used with the notions; identity preservation, and
segregation. Smyth and Phillips (2002) provide a taxonomy of these notions based on
their distinct roles in agro-food supply chain. According to these authors, identity
preservation (IP) has ex-ante perspective. For example, organic produce obtain premium
after credibly claiming that necessary set of measures are taken to preserve the identity of
the product (including the source of ingredients) in the chain. IP’s main purpose is to
extract premiums. Segregation is to prevent commingling of the product for which
potential health concerns exist and other products throughout the supply chain. This may
include novel varieties of grain and genetically modified (GM) versions. Segregation’s
focus is to ensure food safety not to extract price premium. The main function of
traceability is considered as to identify the source of contamination and thereby help
contain and remedy the food safety problem. It implies that that traceability has ex-post
perspective. The price premium for traceability can be available for early adopters only in
the short term. Liddell and Bailey (2001) further distinguish traceability from
transparency, and quality assurances notions. Transparency refer to the public availability
of production information at each stage of production and quality assurances refer to
practices to ensure food safety and quality, which could be intrinsic such as back fat and
curing or extrinsic such as animal welfare and environmental preservation. Hobbs et al.
(2005) find that quality assurances are more valuable to consumers than traceability claim
by itself. Bundling traceability with quality assurances has the potential to deliver more
value.