When federal regulators recently declared the broadly used food additive Red Dye No. 3 as Public Health Enemy No. 1, Michael \u201cDoc\u201d Dagerath was prepared for his phone and inbox to light up with questions from anxious retailers, brands and suppliers.<\/p>\n
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Perhaps the biggest question: \u201cDo we even know which products in our stores contain Red Dye No. 3?\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n For many retailers, the immediate answer was, \u201cNo. I don\u2019t know which products contain Red Dye No. 3.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s surprising how many retailers don’t have their product information digitized,\u201d said Dagerath, vice president of quality assurance at Daymon, which powers private brands for Advantage Solutions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Product digitization, part of Advantage\u2019s quality assurance offering, means that every item in the store is scanned and recorded. Access to these digital retail records is key for retailers, allowing for items with particular attributes to be easily located and removed from shelves as needed, he said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAny branded products, whether they be store brands, national or regional brands, should have their product information digitized so they can quickly query and understand the answer to any question that they need answered,\u201d said Dagerath.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Such was the case when the U.S. Food & Drug Administration in January moved to ban Red Dye No. 3, a food additive found in thousands of products. With mandatory compliance required within two years, the FDA\u2019s decision set off a scramble among product manufacturers to reformulate \u2014 and among retailers to develop plans to reformulate or pull affected products off shelves.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Without access to digital product records, the manual process of surveying thousands of SKUs could take months instead of minutes, and costs significantly more in terms of labor, he said. \u201cYou\u2019d need a small army of people to do that for 3,000+ SKUs.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s not just about Red Dye No. 3. Advantage\u2019s quality assurance services help brands comply with new and evolving regulations from federal agencies like looming tariffs and its potential business impact to profits. It pays to be nimble \u2014 those that respond quickly can gain a competitive edge and also save money in the process.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Digital shelf optimization is also important for identifying products with artificial colors or flavors, allergens, and claims that need to be included on labels, as well as new food traceability standards, Dagerath said. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n For retailers, he said, \u201cThe question is not if you\u2019re going to digitize your product information, it\u2019s when you\u2019re going to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hear from Michael \u201cDoc\u201d Dagerath and leaders from Advantage Solutions at Expo West on March 5 during the panel discussion, \u201cEmergent to Insurgent: Crack the Code to Propel Breakthrough Brand Growth.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When federal regulators recently declared the broadly used food additive Red Dye No. 3 as Public Health Enemy No. 1, Michael \u201cDoc\u201d Dagerath was prepared for his phone and inbox to light up with questions from anxious retailers, brands and suppliers. \u201cDo we need to pull the product from shelves?\u201d \u201cWhat do I use instead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2935,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"mrktblog-category":[41],"class_list":["post-2008","mrktblog-posts","type-mrktblog-posts","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","mrktblog-category-advantage-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLack digitized product information hinders easy compliance<\/h3>\n