Announcer
Brenn-B Farms is a family-owned vegetable operation - packing potatoes - that have recently implemented a traceability program. Regardless of the commodity or type of operation, traceability is best defined as the ability to trace what goes into growing a crop, all through to harvest and processing, and its final delivery to a customer - essentially every INPUT, every step in PRODUCTION, and every OUTPUT.
Announcer
The traceability system at Brenn-B Farms starts with FarmworksTM, a software program that keeps a full record of farm management information from planting to harvest and every INPUT along the way - seed, fertilizers, chemicals - the sprayer-operator, the grower - whether the product came from the Brenns' own farm or someone else's, the field it came from, the truck and the driver, the date it went into storage or into the packing-house - and every load of potatoes coming into the facility is numbered at the scale-head.
Shawn Brenn, Operations Manager, Brenn-B Farms
From that scales-ticket number, we can link our harvest application to any sort of field operation. And in the field operation we're keeping track of fertilizer batch-numbers, spray-input lot-numbers as well.
Wendy Brenn, Operations, Brenn-B Farms
We then go into our production line, which is our packaging, and that's all labeled and coded;
Announcer
The scale-head ticket number links all of the information entered into FarmworksTM and Produce PakTM, the new software program they purchased as part of the implementation, to manage the harvested product in storage, operations in the packing house and the finished product inventory. All of this PRODUCTION information relating to the product and packing is sent to the label printer and applicator at the end of the line to lot-code each bag of potatoes.
Announcer
And finally, all of the outputs are recorded and forwarded, including the pallet-tag numbers; the truck it goes on and the date; the customer - or customers - it goes to; the sales order, and the invoice information are all recorded in Produce Pak and in their accounting software. And it's all very accurate and very useful in making of all sorts of management decisions, especially in any crisis situation.
Shawn Brenn, Operations Manager, Brenn-B Farms
So at any given time, from the store level, I can go in and trace my product back to a production day, a farm that it was produced on, so being able to have that information on a package at the store level is extremely valuable for us.
Shawn Brenn, Operations Manager, Brenn-B Farms
So if we did need to do a recall, it's not something we'd have to scramble through all the papers. Once we have that lot-identifier we can trace a product within minutes.
Announcer
One of the key considerations in embarking on a traceability program was that it could be integrated with the existing computer farm management system that the Brenn's introduced about five years ago to help with nutrient management.
Shawn Brenn, Operations Manager, Brenn-B Farms
We implemented a system called Farm Works software, and it tracks every employee, every tractor, every crop input that we use on a daily basis. … It was crucial that I didn't forfeit the stuff that I already had in place. I wanted to work it into the system that we already had.
Announcer
But not everyone has such an easy time adapting to new ways and new technologies, and what they may have thought was going to be a fairly simple undertaking for everyone soon turned into a big challenge for some.
Wendy Brenn, Operations, Brenn-B Farms
It became stressful actually. There was times where we just didn't know when we went to bed at night whether we were going to continue because we were so lost. I think my son was a little more at ease because of the technology. I had a little more trouble grasping everything.
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