The world is going through an unprecedented crisis following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The disruption caused by the spread of this disease has slowed the movement of people as well as goods. However, that doesn’t mean that there is a complete stop of imports and exports of essential goods, foods and medicine as most countries are striving to keep these supply chains unaffected by any means necessary.
It is not an easy task for producers and retailers to export or import these products at the speeds necessary, while also ensuring regulatory compliance, which is a very challenging and costly task.
Even in a time of crisis, these rules are rarely relaxed. In fact, countries may demand much more stringent compliance as they want to ensure the safety of the products and reliability of the supply chains responsible for the movement of these essential goods. The majority of companies are following manual, time-consuming methods of managing all relevant documents and approvals to facilitate easy movement of goods across borders and within their established supply chains.
Conventional supply chain management practices require companies to manually process a huge number of regulatory certifications and documentations. This time-consuming process translates to a huge monetary cost to the suppliers as well as buyers.
Using Morpheus.Network Supply Chain Middleware to Overcome Challenges
The use of latest technology to automate supply chain management can help companies cut down on time as well as associated costs. Recently, one of the top 50 largest companies in Canada – Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL) did just that by collaborating with Morpheus.Network, a supply chain SaaS middleware platform which seamlessly integrates legacy and emerging technologies such as Blockchain, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Machine Learning.
FCL is a Canada-based wholesaling, manufacturing, marketing and administrative co-operative owned by more than 170 independent retail co-operative associations with a revenue of $9.2 billion USD (2019). FCL is largely a business-to-business (B2B) operation linking hundreds of suppliers through FCL warehouses. Its core business includes wholesaling, manufacturing, marketing and administration in four areas; agriculture, energy, food and home and building solutions. It employs over 23,000 employees and has over 1,400 retail food stores, home centres, gas bars/convenience stores, agro centres, propane plants and feed plants.
As a part of a 3-year partnership, Morpheus.Network is automating the collection and management of documents from each supplier while providing a self-serve supplier portal for them to securely upload and manage their documents. All the documents uploaded through the portal are validated by third-party compliance organizations using OCR capabilities, and relevant parties receive automated alerts before they expire. The crucial service offered by Morpheus.Network helps companies like FCL comply with current government regulations including the Safe Food for Canadians Act and Regulations (SFCA & SFCR). The SFCA and SFCR regulate food products imported into or exported from Canada or traded between provinces. These regulations add new licensing, preventive controls, and traceability requirements to help ensure food safety and consumer protection.
The Morpheus.Network platform creates a unique digital footprint for each supplier, showing the current and historical compliance status, backed by blockchain technology as an immutable record. These records are designed to match the new licensing, preventing controls and traceability requirements as put forth by the latest SFCA & SFCR.
Morpheus.Network is helping solve supply chain challenges for clients around the world. The latest addition to its client list is Vitalcan – a leading Argentinian pet food and supplements company. Morpheus.Network has provided Vitalcan with supply chain middleware to support all stakeholders. It enables the company to develop and track inbound and outbound workflows, digitize documents and data in real-time, and maintain Agri-Food compliance as prescribed by SENASA.
Morpheus.Network is intensely focused on helping companies and Government organizations remove barriers to optimize and automate their global supply chain operations. Helping companies with food and safety regulatory compliance is crucial in building robust supply chains which ensures our food – for humans and pets alike – is as safe as possible.
