Country of Origin

The makers of Stilton cheese, Parma ham and Scotch Whisky have known for many years that country of origin is an important marketing tool and that traceability is essential in proving provenance. Other industries are fast learning that ensuring raw ingredients have not come from a certain region is every bit as important.

The reported labour conditions in Uzbekistan's cotton industry particularly the use of child labour, caused such concern that major retail brands have moved to ban Uzbek cotton from their supply chain. The difficulty they face is in knowing where the cotton used to make the yarn to make the fabric used in the finished garments actually came from. Most retailers have little or no knowledge of the origins of their supply chain because so many different processes are involved in producing a finished product and the yarn spinner often has no idea which brand will eventually sell the finished article their yarn is used in. String allows one actor in the supply chain to request information from an earlier actor allowing a brand to work its way back through the chain to establish the country of origin and is being used by major brands for this purpose.

Conversely String can also be used to prevent universal recall of products from a particular country of origin where only a small proportion of product is affected. The Irish pork industry suffered a real blow in December 2008 when a scare caused by dioxin levels in pig feed led to the recall of Irish pork products from around the world despite only 10% of products being affected. Batch level traceability would have enabled those products affected to be recalled and saved the Irish government many millions of euros in compensation.