Technology & Standards: GTIN in the Produce Industry
The GTIN is being used in supply chain programs/tools such as Traceability, RFID, UCCnet, GS1 DataBar (formerly RSS) , and Electronic Commerce.
Without this number, organizations will not be able to participate in some of these programs; however, there is a challenge in using the GTIN in the produce industry – particularly in the use of a GTIN to identify a case
vs. a GTIN used to identify an item.
At the Case Level
The GTIN should be used as designed to identify a case of product in the produce industry. There are no restrictions at the case level within the produce industry that would prevent the GTIN from being used to identify
a case of product. A supplier would need to obtain a manufacturer prefix number from GS1 US and then assign an "item number" to that particular case configuration.
It is important to understand that the item number portion of the GTIN at the case level may or may not be different than the item number of the product inside of the case. This allows for a company to assign different case
configurations for the same item (e.g. a 24-pack and a 12-pack). In this scenario, a buyer would be able to order a 24-pack of an item with one GTIN and a 12-pack of the same item with a different GTIN.
At the Item Level
As over 80% of the produce industry uses PLU numbers on their fresh produce items, a UPC is currently not being used. The PLU number (printed on a sticker and affixed to the fresh produce item) has been an efficient way to
identify a particular commodity, while taking up little real estate on the item itself. The differences between what the UPC can do versus the PLU number are:
- The PLU number does not uniquely identify the item
- The PLU number does not tie the commodity to a specific grower/shipper
Although this has been acceptable in the past, it quickly is becoming problematic with the advent of several new requirements around traceability and RFID. New technologies, such as
the GS1 DataBar (formerly RSS ) and RFID, are now available that would allow information to be carried on an item in a space significantly smaller than the traditional UPC barcode.
This would now allow the produce industry to provide more information about the product.
Recommendation
If every company were to assign a unique number to every permutation of a produce item, the number of GTINs would expand exponentially. As the majority of buyers typically store a single number for each commodity
(either their own SKU number or the PLU number), this increase in numbers would cause a database explosion at the buyer's location.
If the produce industry were to use the PLU number in place of the item number portion of the GTIN, then the industry would be able to track the commodity to the grower-shipper. This would enable at the item level effective
traceability, e-commerce, use of the GS1 DataBar (formerly RSS ), use of RFID, Continuous Replenishment, Category Management, syndicated data, etc. It would also cause only a minor increase
in a buyer's database versus a database explosion. For example, if a buyer bought a commodity from five suppliers, they would now have five entries in their database as opposed to one entry. This is a manageable increase.
Comments or thoughts about this recommendation may be sent to the PMA Vice President of Industry Standards and Technology, +1 (302) 738-7100.
Related Documents (PDF)
GTIN Assignment Strategy 
- 07/11/2008
A strategy recommended by PMA for produce companies to assign GTIN numbers at the case level.
Pallet & Case Coding: Best Practices
- 05/05/2008
Many segments of the distribuion network are determining ways to make supply chain integration more efficient. A key component of this is case and pallet coding. This document underscores the fresh produce industry's need to mark pallets and cases with bar codes, provides direction on what standardized data is relevant & gives examples of best practices.
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