Using your example, a business may purchase a quanitity of 100 “0 35000 44611 4″ (32oz bottles of AJAX) and submit the PO to 0035000000002 (the Global Location Number for Colgate-Palmolive). Colgate would send the AJAX to the address represented by the customer’s GLN and the customer would send payment back to Colgate’s GLN.

This is why it is critical for businesses to properly register themselves with GS1.

Eventually it is the goal for this database to house additional item specific information. The placeholders are there in the database, but the manufacturers have to supply the data to be posted.

Our company solves the headache for small growers but we only work with independent growers who own or lease the land where the produce is grown and who oversee the operation personally. Also, we limit the amount that any single grower can sell under our label to $1 million total per year to even the playing field between larger and smaller growers. All growers are welcome but we are interested in supporting smaller local growers specifically.

I appreciate your careful read of our website. We are very proud of what we are doing and we appreciate the recognition from someone who understands the intricate details of the GS1 system.

This problem is not as significant when you have item-level traceability where the consumer can use the databar on the item to see excactly where the item was produced. In our case, the consumer would see pictures and a description of the farm, along with a location of the farm on a location map. The item number is specific to that item (Tomato from Jone’s Farm in Field number 2, for example) so it would be pretty difficult to fool the consumer absent outright lying on the database and not being caught by thousands of prying eyes. We even plan to have farm tours and micro blogs by the producers so the fraud would have to be very elaborate indeed if a Chinese company were to try the same.

What that analysis does not mention is that the least expensive way to go with Mr. Grant’s solution “begins” in the $2000 range. With our solution at Top 10 Produce LLC, the growers can sell under our 100% traceable label and comply with the PTI for $180 per year, plus what they pay for labels (about 6/10 of a cent per item). For the smaller growers this is an important consideration that should not be ignored in a complete analysis of the “I” in ROI.