How important is supply chain transparency to supplement brands? The level of its importance determines the level of the business’ growth and success. Supply chain transparency builds trust through legitimacy across the board–trust with suppliers, employees, customers and oversight agencies. Are you transparent in the chain? Are others transparent with you? More importantly, how high is the trust level within the chain? Have you ever suspected “deceptive documentation?”
Supply chain transparency is the disclosure and transfer of credible, accurate and truthful information from one supplier to another through the chain of products and services down to the end user. Specifically, in the dietary and food supplement industry, this could mean raw material originating from a farm; shipped or delivered to a raw material supplier or processor, then to a manufacturer; then finished product shipped to a distributor or direct to consumers. A commonly used phrase to describe this chain is “from farm to fork.”
Supply chain transparency is embedded in supply chain management that dates to the early 1900s, according to the supply chain management site SupplyChainOpz. As this network of business evolved, so did the need for dependence on each segment or entity to provide truthful and credible information in order to traverse the continuous flow of exchange of materials and goods through both foreign borders and domestic marketplaces.
The need for supply chain transparency is a demand being placed by consumers who want to know exactly what’s in their supplements, their sources or countries of origin, and how all the associated components were handled and distributed.
Over the last decade, increased attention from regulatory and compliance agencies resulted from a spate of food-safety issues and heightened threat of bioterrorism, as evidenced by the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 (Bioterrorism Act), signed into law by President George W. Bush on June 12, 2002.
As a result, conducting an internet search for information on supply chain transparency today, will result in an overwhelming plethora of information, enough to keep one occupied at length. Whether this represents an emerging trend or a growing corporate awareness of consumer desires might be less debated given the climate of business-related human rights concerns also associated with supply-chain activities (e.g., child labor, forced labor, slavery and human trafficking). Consumers are not the only ones concerned about transparency.
Congress is just as concerned about supply chain transparency, traceability and disclosure requirements demonstrated in the Business Supply Chain Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act of 2014 (H.R.4842) introduced by New York State Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-12). Further, FDA’s enforcement measures have caused the industry to pay more attention to supply chain management and transparency.
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