Lotpath is the home of food supply chain transparency. Lotpath enables suppliers of food to share vital information about their products with consumers, retailers, trading partners, and regulatory agencies. Lotpath enlightens consumers by providing information about the source and safety of their food supply. Lotpath is a community of people interested in the production and consumption of food.
Food suppliers assign traceable item numbers to products that they produce and package. Examples of traceable item numbers include lot numbers, shipping container tags, pallet tags, and consumer unit numbers. Lot numbers, also known as batch numbers, are especially important as they represent the harvesting or processing of a particular product at a particular time and location. Traceable item numbers are essential for effective supply chain traceability. Traceable item numbers are the primary key by which suppliers put information into Lotpath and by which users extract information from Lotpath.
Suppliers range in size from small family farms to large multinational corporations. All food follows a path through the supply chain. This path may be as simple as a drive to the local farmers market or it may involve multiple raw ingredients, sources, processes, and distribution routes. Regardless of the path, there is a wealth of information that is collected along the way. This information may include agricultural practices, locations and dates, sanitation and safety data, quality measurements, nutritional information, packaging information, and transportation details. Lotpath stores product information in a flexible and extendible format. Lotpath employs global supply chain standards to collect and store information.
Suppliers put marks on their products or packaging to indicate that information is available for the product in Lotpath. Lotpath is technology neutral. Suppliers may use various product marking technologies including human readable labels and machine readable tags. The product marking, which represents a traceable item (lot number, case tag, pallet tag, consumer unit, etc.) is printed on the product or encoded in a tag, enabling access to information in Lotpath.
Suppliers have full control over the information that is made available to Lotpath users. Innovative technology developed by Lotpath allows suppliers to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive or confidential information. This transparency management capability allows suppliers to fulfill trading partner and regulatory requirements without revealing proprietary information to unauthorized parties.
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Lotpath provides search and browse features that enable retail and foodservice companies to find products and suppliers. Buyers can search on keywords or browse products by category. Lotpath has a proximity search feature that will find local products and suppliers. Lotpath enables retailers and foodservice companies to obtain information from food suppliers beyond purchase and shipping information, helping to enforce supplier compliance program requirements.
There are many industry programs with an interest in food including regional commodity marketing organizations and agricultural practices organizations. Lotpath lets industry programs manage food supplier's program memberships and participation levels. When Lotpath users view food supplier information, they see information about the industry programs in which the supplier participates.
Lotpath provides a rich user experience for consumers. Lotpath is accessible from various internet enabled devices. Consumers can view detailed information for products they have purchased, or are considering purchasing. They can use the advanced search capabilities in Lotpath to find products and suppliers that meet their purchasing preferences (local, organic, etc.). As Lotpath develops new innovations, more information and capabilities will become available to consumers.
