"For decades, Trace One has been at the forefront of sustainable product development, adapting innovative Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Tools to address new challenges," says Antoine Daviet [pictured], chief product officer at Trace One.
As part of his role, Daviet's in charge of the product portfolio and is keen on understanding market needs and the latest trends.
He has more than a decade of private label and IT experience, including product development and quality management at E.Leclerc in France.
We talked with Daviet to learn about global regulatory markets and the need for forward-looking approaches to sustainability and compliance in labelling and packaging.
The stakes are high for food and beverage brands as errors can result in the need for hasty reformulations — or worse, product recalls.
Mislabelled ingredients, insufficient nutritional descriptions, incomplete or conflicting country of origin information, and packaging materials that fall short of benchmarks can all cause issues when it comes to sustainability requirements.
To add to the complexity, rules and guidelines are not consistent from region to region. At the same time, the laws that are in place are changing fast.
“Trace One’s centralised PLM business platform allows and empowers customers to meet sustainability and compliance-focused regulations,” Daviet says.
“We work closely with managers across innovation and R&D, quality management, regulatory affairs, and procurement. Without this centralised system, regulatory changes in labelling, sustainability standards, or manufacturing ingredients can be tricky to stay on top of.”
Trace One has provided food and beverage, cosmetics and personal care, and specialty chemical brands with expertise in the regulatory landscape for decades.
With 15 offices across four continents, Trace One’s depth of knowledge combined with real-time PLM data empowers companies to successfully deploy sustainability efforts.
Experts in each vertical provide a constant stream of verified updates to the Trace One regulatory compliance database, which tracks a variety of ingredients, additives, flavouring substances, pesticides, and more.
With this intelligence, clients can receive alerts regarding changes to their product portfolio and markets, document and evaluate their supplier relationships, and source new suppliers as necessary.
A History Of Sustainability
“Our journey in sustainability began long before such regulations were even in place,” Daviet says.
“Companies initially wanted to switch out certain packaging for more sustainable alternatives or enhance nutritional values to manage and distinguish their brands from others on the supermarket shelves.”
As new regulations regarding sustainability were introduced, brands moved from voluntary to mandatory efforts.
Early regulatory trends, such as GMO labelling, organic certification, and ethical sourcing practices, including RSPO certification for palm oil or MSC for marine resources, required companies to validate their claims.
As sustainability efforts progressed to include agricultural practices, pesticide use, and enhanced animal welfare, the need for granular lifecycle data became even more necessary.
“Sustainability is a primary driver of product innovation,” Daviet says. “Industry-wide measures like the NutriScore for nutritional transparency and various plastic pacts aimed at improving recyclability reflect this shift.”
Meeting The Challenge Of Global Regulatory Compliance
Trace One’s PLM systems enable grocery retailers such as Ahold Delhaize and Intermarché to work nimbly to meet sustainability and compliance-focused regulations.
Marks & Spencer Foods, the international food retailer, initially used Trace One Analytics to track regulatory high fat, salt, and sugar measures. The platform is now readying them for the next challenge — sustainability.
A large international food retail customer has recently begun using high fat, salt, sugar (HFSS) tracking in their Trace One PLM system, using Trace One Analytics to track regulatory HFSS measures.
They say they see mandatory ecolabeling as emerging worldwide for country-specific food systems, and they feel ready to meet these challenges without impacting production, thanks to their tracking of existing processes and workflows in Trace One’s systems.
The platform is able to help with more than just ingredients. PLM data is already impacting the amount of plastics being used in packaging.
“Our collaboration with brands in Europe and the US on plastic pacts, which bring stakeholders from industry, government, and NGO’s together to tackle plastic pollution, has been hugely significant in ensuring clients meet market expectations and avoid regulatory penalties,” Daviet says.
Trace One facilitated a 40,000-ton reduction in plastic use and a 30% increase in recycled materials by standardising packaging specifications through partnerships with local industry groups and suppliers.
The PLM dashboards track and report on these achievements, underscoring clients’ commitment to sustainability.
The Future Of Compliance And Sustainability
With a focus on the emerging regulatory landscape, Trace One is actively addressing forthcoming sustainability standards.
This includes proactively updating its database and systems to comply with EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework, and anticipated product passports requiring recyclability and lifecycle data for products like electronics.
“As sustainability takes centre stage in product development, Trace One is embedding these requirements into PLM offerings, ensuring that companies are well-prepared for a future where sustainability is paramount,” Daviet says.
“We are guiding the product development process and in doing so, empowering brands to meet all compliance-focused regulations.”
This article was written in partnership with Trace One.
