Product Information Form under review

Tuesday, 17 November 2009 10:53

The Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) today released an industry consultation paper on the review of the universal supplier questionnaire, the Product Information Form (PIF).

The PIF enables the use of a single template across the food industry throughout Australia and New Zealand, replacing numerous company-specific information forms. It was initially launched in February 2008 and since then there has been significant take-up of the form across industry, resulting in major improvements in productivity and efficiency. Increasingly companies are seeing this form as a key component in addressing traceability and quality requirements.

AFGC is reviewing the PIF to see if there are any industry-driven needs to add any new questions that had not been considered when the form was developed nearly four years ago. The review also provides an opportunity to consider if further gains in efficiency and productivity can be made in reducing the number of data entry fields, the overall size and complexity of the form, and look to improve the ability to integrate the form into company database systems.

The review is open to all food manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, information technology providers and third party auditors to provide comments and recommend changes. Once implemented, it is unlikely that further significant changes will be considered for the foreseeable future.

The consultation paper is available from 16 November from the AFGC website: www.afgc.org.au

The closing date for submissions is 15 February 2010.