Food Trak offers low cost traceability Protection for pigmeat brand' Building traceability into the British pigmeat brand' without adding heavy expense in a cost-sensitive sector is the objective of a joint initiative by Assured British Meat and food industry IT specialist Food Trak, boosted by a grant under MAFF's new agricultural development scheme. Food Trak's traceability system originated as a food safety tool and is now used by retailers and brand managers as a risk management tool. It is particularly effective for brand protection when a food scare makes product recall necessary. As an integrated system working through the net, Food Trak is claimed to offer the advantage of low cost. Nicholas Reed of Food Trak points out: "Traceability schemes in general are expensive." Reed and ABM chief executive David Peace believe Food Trak's technical sophistication will lighten the burden of traceability as an industry overhead cost, while ABM hopes to develop it as positive added value. "With Food Trak we can fully integrate traceability into the farm assurance package, adding it to animal welfare, food safety and all the other elements," Peace told The Grocer. ABM could use Food Trak to give farm assurance commercial value to British pig and pigmeat suppliers in their competition against imports. {{MEAT }}