August 2011: Turbocharge Mobile Marketing with HarvestMark and QR Codes
This month HarvestMark launched several enhancements to our popular HarvestMark Food Traceability App for smartphones.
- Support for QR codes. Using a QR code rather than a datamatrix allows shoppers to scan a HarvestMark code using either the HarvestMark app or any QR code reader. The popularity of QR codes also increases trace rates. We’ve begun working with our customers to transition to QR codes. See the complete announcement here.
Are you interested in adding a HarvestMark QR code to your label? Contact our marketing team who can work with you and your printer to support the transition to QR Codes.
- Now available for Android. According to research from IDC, Google’s Android operating system now has 40% share of smartphones worldwide. After receiving hundreds of requests from shoppers for an Android App, we’ve just launched it, doubling the HarvestMark App mobile shopping audience. Download the Android app here.
HarvestMark Now Available on National Brand Chicken
Coleman Natural Foods, a leading producer of organic and free range poultry, has selected the HarvestMark traceability platform for use across its product lines. The first Coleman brands to carry HarvestMark traceability will be Rocky the Range®, Rocky Jr.®, and Rosie® Organic Chicken from Petaluma Poultry®. Starting in July, shoppers were able to trace their chicken back to the farm to find out where and how it was raised, share their feedback, and check the food safety status of the poultry.
By expanding the HarvestMark platform into meat and poultry we expand the relevance to shoppers, and open the door for retailers and grower/shippers to cross-promote across categories.
Check it out by scanning this QR code or visiting a Petaluma response page.
5 Reasons Why Companies Aren’t Waiting to Implement PTI 1
1. Retailers expect it.
Several key retailers have asked for grower/shippers to be PTI compliant on schedule. That means the product being packed in December 2011 and onward should carry PTI labels on cases. We have the easiest-to-deploy solution that can get you up and running without
diverting your valuable IT resources.
2. Act now, pack later.
No matter how simple or complex your business, planning and deployment takes time. Finalizing your implementation in advance of your harvest affords you the time to pick the right solution, prove it out, and not distract your valuable resources for packing and shipping during harvest. Our unmatched number of PTI deployments enables us to quickly determine the best solution for your business, making compliance smooth and straightforward.
We’ve gone through the paces implementing over 150 PTI systems with shippers across North America and Latin America. We use this knowledge to make your PTIcompliance easy, free scarce IT resources, and deliver solutions that provide new insights into your supply chain. Curious how we can help you?
3. Exhibit leadership to your buyers.
Adopting PTI differentiates you from suppliers that are still finalizing their strategy . . . or are disengaged from the process. Many suppliers are using this as an opportunity to proactively engage their customers, and build stronger relationships.
4. It takes time and expertise to align your supply chain.
We know that many suppliers source product from co-packers and outside growers. Ensuring that GTINs are defined and distributed across your sourcing supply chain, that label formats are finalized, and that all of your products are ready for compliance can be complicated. HarvestMark PTI is the best solution to easily support diverse supply chains and make PTI easy.
5. You’ll find unexpected cost savings.
Customers have discovered unexpected benefits from implementing PTI, such as faster case identification (compared to hand written codes), simplified case design that leads to lower costs (put the data on the label instead), and elimination of cumbersome and inaccurate manual data collection steps.