Ninjacart introduces foodprint to enable end to end food traceability

BENGALURU, 7 June 2020: Ninjacart- India’s B2B fresh food supply chain company has launched FoodPrint, a complete food traceability infrastructure that captures the end-to-end footprint traceability of fruits and vegetables which moves from farm to home.

The FoodPrint initiative is launched on the occasion of “World Food Safety Day” declared by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and World Health Organization (WHO), which is observed on June 7 of every year.

With this, a consumer will now be able to trace the journey and view the real-time footprint data of the fresh fruits and vegetables they ordered through the Food Print Viewer feature available on the official website.

To avail this feature, one has to order from Ninjacart’s partner grocery store through Swiggy, Zomato, Dunzo, and other online platforms, to view the Foodprint data.

Speaking on this initiative, Ninjacart co-founder & CEO Thirukumaran Nagarajan said, “We are happy to have launched this initiative alongside “World Food Safety Day” which stands for "Food Safety, Everyone's Business". Today with ‘FoodPrint’, we have taken the first step towards bringing that idea to fruition. We all have understood the pertinence of traceability given the current situation. Accountability plays a very big role in the supply chain of fresh produce.”

“With this initiative, farmers will have to produce a safer and quality product which makes them equally responsible in the whole food chain process and the end consumer will be assured about the quality. With constant innovation in the Agri supply chain, we hope to impact human lives by building a most reliable supply chain ensuring food safety in the times to come,” Nagarajan added.

COVID-19 and its impact on every aspect of human life have made people view every decision of purchasing in light of health and safety.

In India, we need regulation and standardization in the Agri supply chain, over and above material goods such as cosmetics and cars. It is high time that we focus on the real issue which needs immediate attention and that is the safety of fresh produce, the company said in the statement.

Over 600 million cases of food borne diseases

We have to imbibe the thought that there is no food without food safety in our consumer's minds as well as farmers. We cannot ignore the fact that there are an estimated 600 million cases of foodborne diseases that occur annually worldwide.

Unsafe food is a threat to human health and this has been reaffirmed by the current crisis the world is dealing with. This concern can only be resolved when international bodies, governments, producers, and consumers consider it as equal responsibility.

Tracing from farm to fork

Ninjacart’s ‘FoodPrint’ traces right from, who is the farmer, when was it harvested, the truck that carried the produce, the warehouse that processed it, the helper who handled the product at the warehouse, a retailer who brought the product, and how it was delivered to the consumer’s doorstep.

With the help of cutting edge technology such as RFID tags, a product is mapped right from the time a farmer brings the produce to the collection centres and the same foodprint ID is kept intact till it reaches the retailer and then the consumer.

All this is possible by entering the order number that one receives on the Realtime Footprint Viewer on the company website under the traceability tab.

The next step to add to the traceability would be FarmPrint and ResiduePrint.

Ninjacart endeavors to build durable and scalable infrastructure which will take another 3 to 4 years to get safe food with the highest possible reliability on the plate of first million customers of India’s ecosystem.