Wyoming Wool Company using ScoringAg Traceback system

[PORKER]

Mountain Meadow Wool Mill First U.S. Wool Company to Provide Full Traceability

NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Bradenton, FL, United States, 10/23/2009 - Mountain Meadow Wool, as an American mill using American merino is championing the sustainability of the North American wool industry by producing full traceback accredited wool fibre products by using the ScoringAg traceback database.


The Mountain Meadow Wool Mill, LP Company has scored a first with an agreement with ScoringAg.com for supplying trace-back records to prove MMWC quality-branded traceable wool. For over 100 years, Basque* sheepherders have grazed sheep on the plains and mountains of Wyoming. Carrying on this rural tradition, two women established Mountain Meadow Wool Company in 2002. Surrounded by the culture of ranching and of sheep, Valerie Spanos and Karen Hostetler searched for products made from the area wool. They built their own mill and have now moved into full traceable wool.

ScoringAg's President, William Kanitz said with the new supply traceability online database system, Mountain Meadow Wool Company hopes to become the premier wool processing facility in Wyoming and unique to the country. They now have a working wool mill not only creating yarn from the fine wool of the area but also custom processing for growers. Mountain Meadow wool returns 10% of the sale of finished products back to their select group of ranchers. These ranchers are compensated at or above the current auction price of equivalent wool types.

Mountain Meadow Wool Mill, LP ( www.mountainmeadowwool.com ) is a small, complete wool processing and spinning mill located near the wool producers in the Rocky Mountains and the old west. Each year they obtain the best merino grade wool from the best growers in the world. They then wash card and spin it using eco-friendly cleansers and non-petroleum spinning oil to bring a, non-chlorinated, pure and soft yarn to market. The sheep are primarily Rambouillet (French-merino) and Columbia. The mill's small size allows them to work closely with customers in order to meet their specific needs. Wool for Mountain Meadow Wool Mill, LP is sourced from ScoringAg recordkeeping farms.

Mountain Meadow Wool Mill, LP initiated integrity branding that provides traceability of the wool fiber back to the producer, supplier, and handlers with an assurance of ethical production and guarantee of performance with quality records.

Mr Kanitz of www.ScoringAg.com said "Mountain Meadow Wool, as an American mill using American merino is championing the sustainability of the North American wool industry by producing full traceback accredited fibre. Valerie Spanos, President, said quality had always been their priority, from the fleece to the final fabric. But now their customers are increasingly concerned about the sustainability and traceability of products from field to customer. "Mountain merino fibres now deliver all of these." Spanos said. Here is a SSI-EID code that can be tracked back SSI_FCCF723E46 either from Traceback.com or ScoringAg.com search engines.

The announcement of using the ScoringAg database has been welcomed by the company as a new level of merchandizing for the company wanting to prove traceability and source verification of wool. They are using wool from US merino wool growers farms that meet their specs and with records. They have a research and development department which continues to explore new and exciting innovations in wool fiber in the mill and on the ranch to create a green, sustainable company with craftsmanship and exacting quality production.

ScoringAg's traceback and trace up system for all agriculture products, featuring Site-Specific Recordkeeping™ and PIDC location codes, is one of the many divisions of ScoringSystem, Inc.( www.traceback.com ), located in Bradenton, Florida USA. With the use of RFID codes, SSI-EID label codes, and 2-D barcodes for trace up and traceback of livestock or their products and crops, produce, ingredients, tracking transport containers or perishable meats and other consumer goods, ScoringAg.com and ScoringContainers.com makes managing data easier and does it in an extremely low cost effective manner.

Mountain Meadow Wool Mill, LP
Valerie Spanos, General Partner
22 Plains Dr.
Buffalo, WY 82834
P: (307) 684-5775

 

[PORKER]

Call to make traceability rules the same for non-EU farmers

George Lyon, Liberal Democrat MEP for Scotland
Rog Wood

Published on 30 Oct 2009

George Lyon, Liberal Democrat MEP for Scotland, has called on the European Commission to make it compulsory for countries from outside the EU to meet the same traceability standards as EU Member States before imports are allowed.

The move comes as the implementation of electronic tagging of sheep (EID) grows ever closer.

Lyon wants the Commission to help protect consumers and farmers from the threat of diseases such as foot and mouth by requiring non-EU states to enforce the same level of traceability as will be required across the EU when EID comes into effect early next year.

Similar tactics were used to ban the importation of beef from Brazil. If the Commission were to go down the same route for sheep meat, it could block imports of lamb from New Zealand.

Speaking from her office in Brussels, Anne Berryman European Manager for Meat and Wool New Zealand conceded that New Zealand did not operate EID, but stressed her confidence in NZ lamb.

Berryman said: "We are confident of New Zealand's own systems for food safety and animal health protection and the assurances these provide to our export markets, customers, and most importantly consumers of our product.

"While we sympathise with European producers who, like our industry, have to contend with increasing compliance costs, there is no scientific or disease-based reason that New Zealand should have EID imposed on it.

"New Zealand has a system in place that allows sheep meat products to be traced back to the farm(s) of origin and this provides the necessary assurances for food safety and animal health protection."

Lyon, who is a former president of NFU Scotland, commented: "As of next year farmers and crofters in Scotland and other sheep farmers across Europe will be required to adhere to strict traceability rules.

"It is only fair that imports from other countries be required to meet the same standards."

He added: "The Commission must make it plain to third countries who wish to export to the EU that high standards of traceability must be met.

"This will not only provide a level playing field, but reassurance to Scottish farmers and consumers on the safety of our food chain."

 

[PORKER]

http://www.meattradenewsdaily.co.uk:80/news/101109/_united_states___scoringag_has_labels_that_are_intelligent_and_smart.aspx

http://www.meattradenewsdaily.co.uk/news/201109/scoringsystem_provides_worldwie_recordkeeping_solutions_of_animals_from_birth_to_retail.aspx
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United States - ScoringAg has labels that are Intelligent and smart

10 Nov 2009

ScoringAg is a global, online record-keeping system housing data for thousands of products, said William Kanitz, president of Bradenton, Fla.-based ScoringSystem Inc., which developed ScoringAg.

ScoringAg's database objective is to provide a simple, reliable, immediate, inexpensive traceback system that minimizes foodsafety risks for handlers worldwide and helps avoid product ambiguity in future recalls, Kanitz said of the Web site, www.scoringag.com .

"This system provides a verifiable audit trail, and with the click of a button, it can give you that in three seconds," Kanitz said. "It's an exchange of information along the way, so everyone's happy. And, if there is a problem, we only recall the portion where there is a problem, not in every warehouse in the world. That's what the industry needs."

To search an item's history, registered users can enter either barcode, radio frequency identification(RFID) or SSI-EID codes — which is the internal tracking code which ScoringAg's database automatically creates when a rancher, shipper or packer registers a product in its system — and the product's real-time profile and location is instantly uploaded, Kanitz said.

The profile features any commodity information the handler wants to include — such as origin info, picture, tag or bolus number, vaccination dates, feed, certifications and slaughter tests received —and each product's records accompany it through the supply chain by label, Kanitz said.

Additionally, the records are secure, so if there is an error, a new report is created, and the Unix-based system chronologically archives the product's previous records, he said. Three seconds is all ScoringAg requires when tracking a product's lineage from pasture to plate from anywhere on the globe.

In that time, ranchers, shippers, packers, fabracitors, transportation providers wholesalers and retailers can view an item's traceback records and inspection history. Here is a SSI-EID code that can be searched at http://www.scoringag.com/ search , SSI_FD949F37BE


"We're looking to make life easier for ranchers, transporters, packers, brokers and retailers," Kanitz said. "The records travel with the product from field to fork."

The system also separates traceback information for each item included in mixed packs, and commingled products so there is no confusion about the origin of the individual products, Kanitz said.

Like RFID and barcodes, retailers can find SSI-EID codes on the individual item or case packages. Food chains have expressed interest in using the record-keeping database for checking on sustainability, Kanitz said.

Costs are minimal, too, as only $10 is needed to establish an account on ScoringAg — a considerably cheaper alternative than companies creating their own traceback networks, he said.

Not to mention, total SSI-EID label costs will only amount to one-fourth of a penny for shippers and packers, while growers are charged 55 cents for each animal they want to feature in the database, like feed type, pasture, breeding, animal health records, pictures/video, and growth performance data.

ScoringAg is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and French and German translations are in the works.

The Unix-based system, however, uses UTF-8 — a uniform way of representing characters entered in a computer — so the database recognizes any language that is typed into the system.

Consumers also can access ScoringAg, but they receive a public version of the records that don't include the grower's name, he said.

Down the road, Kanitz hopes to make consumers more aware of ScoringAg by having kiosks set up in grocery stores where consumers can punch in the traceback code at http://www.traceback.com/ or just use their internet cell phone.

Kanitz would also like to see a universal symbol established in the meat industry that indicates whether or not an meat item is traceable, he said.





Contact:



William Kanitz

President

ScoringAg, Inc.

Bradenton, FL 34201, USA

+ 941-792-6405

 

[PORKER]

http://www.aaatrace.com/

This link tells how traceability is moving from country to country
and why Japan has been a tough sell after mad cow events.
Every one wants real data from day one.

 

[PORKER]

Mountain Meadow Wool Brings Traceability to Wool Products

By BECKY TALLEY
Sheep Industry News Associate Editor

(February 1, 2010) Consumers are increasingly demanding to know where their goods have come from. While this is most noticeable in the food sector, it is gaining increasing popularity outside of that realm. People want to know where their clothes are coming from, and if they are made from a natural-fiber, the conditions in which that fiber was raised.

With this in mind, Mountain Meadows Wool Mill LP which performs wool processing and spinning, is embarking on yet another leg of its already interesting journey, and offering a groundbreaking service to give consumers the ability to trace a purchase back to the ranch it started on.

This year, the mill will begin to offer product traceability through a database called the ScoringAg traceback system. A customer can buy a skein of yarn which is labeled with a traceback code that when entered into the database will provide information on the ranch and the wool.

"Consumers are very interested in the breeds and fiber characteristics. They want to know where it came from and that the animals are well cared for. They are wanting that assurance," says Valerie Spanos, Mountain Meadow Wool Mill co-owner.

Spanos and fellow co-owner, Karen Hostetler, felt offering traceability was an easy step to make because the wool growers they work with already practice sustainability and good animal welfare just by raising sheep the way they have been raised for decades.

"Our mission always was to create a company that sustains ranching. The only way we could do that was to give ranchers credit for their good practices and create a market for that," says Hostetler. "It seems like a really good time to initiate the traceability. Consumers do want to know, so we are going to have that ability."

Adding the traceability concept to the mill's business plan is just the latest in what has been a year of growth for the company.

They first received grants to research the facility in 2004, and after several more years of grants, training and location of equipment, they began spinning yarn and are now seeing an increase in sales.

"A year ago, we were actively looking for yarn shops. This time last year we had only two yarn shops that were buying from us. Now we have shops all across the country buying and have three sales reps," Hostetler says, adding that their yarns are picking up international clients as well.

"We are starting to get a name. We are starting to get branded, which is what we wanted this year," Spanos relates.

Currently, the mill offers batts and roving for hand spinning, skeins of yarn and a limited amount of knitted products that are made from the mill's yarn and knitted in New York. They also have a relationship with a small business that buys Mountain Meadow's yarn and then makes private-label outdoor and hunting gloves and mittens.

Much of this product comes from 24-micron or finer wool that is produced by the four or five growers that the mill has forged a relationship with. These growers are located in the Wyoming area, many are members of the Mountain States Cooperative, and meet the standards that the mill requires in terms of sustainability and handling practices.

According to Spanos, the growers have been an integral part of the success of the mill, as it is designed for the producers to provide wool up front and receive payment when the final product is sold. Once it is sold, the growers get 10 percent of the sale of the finished product, and are more than compensated the auction price of the wool.

"We have had growers that are willing to take a risk with us. The growers own their wool all the way to the consumer, but they are really getting a good price at the end," says Hostetler.

The mill already keeps track of whose wool goes into what product, and with the addition of the electronic database, expects to see an increase in customers looking for this option.

"Customers have requested yarn that came from a specific ranch already," Spanos says.

With continued growth, Spanos and Hostetler are hoping to expand product lines at the mill, including those that might be made from the coarser and black-face wools.
They also hope to continue to research and implement more ways to walk the sustainability walk while they are talking the talk, focusing now on effluent and waste water treatment and recycling through a recent grant.

"We don't want to be a wasteful company. Wyoming water is much too valuable to waste," says Hostetler, adding they are also hoping to extract wool grease from waste and research is ongoing on the ability to capture methane, which would be used to power some of the mill's equipment.

For Hostetler and Spanos, taking their vision of a sustainable, innovative business that supports local wool growers to where it is now has been more than they had hoped for … and a little unexpected.

"The future looks good. It has been real positive. We could never have envisioned what this was going to look like; it kind of had a life of its own. We filled a need and we are happy about it," Hostetler says.