Case Study Two: Poultry in Kyoto Prefecture

The Kyoto Poultry Traceability System was chosen as a case study because it is an example of a response to a global problem—avian flu—and it is also a system that, unlike the Oita model, heavily involves the farmers themselves with the support of local government. The Kyoto system requires a greater amount of information than the Oita case, which primarily recorded only volumes and movement. It records the kinds of poultry, the date of slaughter, and the method of delivery to the destination. In addition, this system includes an example of a method of sharing traceability data directly with customers.

In 2004, an outbreak of avian flu in Kyoto caused substantial damage to the poultry industry and required better risk management measures to restore consumer confidence in poultry products. In April 2006, producers and distributors of eggs, live poultry, and poultry meat established the Kyoto Egg and Poultry Safety Promotion Council with support from the Kyoto prefectural government.

The Council conducted a consumer survey to identify what information consumers desired. The results showed that 39% of consumers wanted to know the date the poultry was slaughtered, 22% wanted to know the last day of processing, 14% wanted the name of the farm at which the poultry was produced, and 13% wanted information on the feed used. The survey also revealed that consumers were more concerned about the reliability of information than how detailed the information was. The Council then created guidelines for quality management and traceability of eggs and poultry, and created a certification system for Council members, who then implemented a safety management system.

The system targets poultry products that are processed by members of the council and consumed mainly in Kyoto Prefecture. The poultry is raised on farms within nine prefectures: Kyoto, Hyogo, Tottori, Shimane, Okayama, Hiroshima, Tokushima, Kagawa, and Ehime. It is then slaughtered and processed at six poultry handling plants. The products are transported by refrigerated truck to retail stores in Kyoto and Osaka Prefectures (27 locations). Currently, this distribution accounts for about 10 tons per day (six tons of thigh and four tons of breast meat).

6.1 Record Keeping at Each Production Stage

The operators at each stage in the food chain (farming, slaughtering, processing, and retail) determine the lot size and give it an ID number. A lot is typically defined as poultry treated in a single day at a particular site. The site can determine smaller lot sizes if it so desires.

At each stage the operators record essential traceability information such as the ID numbers of the lot as well as the ID numbers of the suppliers and customers of the lot. Each operator not only keeps these records at its site but also supplies an electronic version of the records to a central server maintained by the Council.

Operators at each stage keep records of their production history, as well as inspection data. For example, farms keep records of salmonella inspections,¹² vaccine inoculations, information regarding hygiene control, the introduction of new chicks, feed expenditures, and daily feeding management operations. These records are not made available on the server but are available at the farms if a problem needs to be investigated.

6.2 Costs and Benefits of the Kyoto Poultry Traceability System

To lower costs, the council designed the traceability system in way that would minimize the amount of information that needed to be collected and shared. This was done by carefully planning and defining the information to be collected, through consumer surveys and feedback from the stakeholders.

Costs to slaughter and processing site: The slaughtering and processing sites needed only to acquire a personal computer, a label printer, and a database server as their initial investments. Installing the appropriate software and hardware required funds on the order of 2,000,000 yen (about US$20,000) per site. The running costs at each slaughter and processing site total about 200,000 yen (about US$2,000) per year. These annual costs can be broken down into membership fee of 50,000 yen per year, labels and printing supply costs of 40,000 yen, Internet connection and server maintenance fees of 50,000 yen, and usage of a system developed by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation to stamp certified times and locations on products at 60,000 yen.

Costs to retail store: The initial costs for a retail store were also about 2,000,000 yen, the same as the initial costs for a slaughter and processing site. For small stores, the system can be implemented with only a “relay” label printer. This will provide the label used at the retail level that includes information such as the product identification number, barcode, and receiving date. In this case, initial costs can be limited to 600,000 yen. In addition, the running costs of retail stores include the membership fee of between 20,000 and 50,000 yen, labels and printing supply costs at 40,000 yen, Internet connection and server fees at 50,000 yen, and time and position certification usage fees at 60,000 yen. These running costs can total from 60,000 yen (for those who only install the relay printer and do not transfer data electronically) to 200,000 yen (for complete functionality).

6.3 Ongoing Role of the Council

The Council is promoting the system to attract more businesses to adopt it. Ultimately, the goal is to cover the operators at all stages in the poultry supply chain and all businesses across each stage. The greater the number of operators this system covers, the more reliably it can track the movement of poultry products.

As part of their goal to achieve transparency throughout the entire traceability system, the Council's system for eggs is already subject to audit and review by third-party inspectors. The Council is planning to subject its poultry system to these same actions.

The successful establishment of a traceability system for Kyoto poultry was a factor in helping to restore consumer confidence in poultry. As the traceability system has been set up to allow consumers to directly access product history information through a website, in December 2007, the site was viewed by businesses about 10 times per day, while views via mobile phone numbered about three to five per day.

Feedback to the Council has shown that customers, including consumer cooperatives and catering businesses for schools and hospitals, are satisfied with the system. However, chicken prices have not increased, at least in part due to the fact that there has not been another widespread avian flu outbreak in the area. Thus, products traced through the Kyoto system have not been able to command higher prices than products outside the system. However, with the Kyoto system in place, the participating operators are prepared for any problems within their food chain and will be able to minimize damage to themselves through rapid responses or will be able to benefit from product differentiation (Sasaki 2007).

6.4 Conclusions on the Kyoto Poultry Traceability System

The Kyoto Poultry Traceability System, like the Oita system, is an example of a response to several common challenges:

• Creating a traceability system in response to disease risks within the food supply
• Creating a system that aims to lower the risk of a public health concern
• Determining exactly what information is necessary to be collected and shared
• Creating a system in which ICT costs can be adjusted for the size of the participating business
• Creating methods of sharing information directly with consumers and buyers
• Creating a system that includes ongoing publicity to recruit new participants

Like the Oita shiitake packers, the Kyoto poultry businesses are now prepared for food supply crises. The Kyoto operators have reduced the financial risk to their business from a poultry supply safety incident, such as further outbreaks of avian flu. In contrast to the Oita system, the Kyoto system has more deeply involved the producers in the data collection.

For the Kyoto system, collecting and sharing production history data quickly in order to respond quickly to any disease outbreaks was an important goal of the traceability system. ICT allowed the Kyoto chicken industry to input, access, and share this critical information much more quickly and broadly than a paper-based system could and therefore ICT is a critical element in the efficiency of this traceability system.

As an example of a system that addresses a public health risk, the Kyoto system also shows successful synergy between national government, local government, and private sector. While funding was balanced between the industry and the local government, the Kyoto system has used a variety of ICT, including the Mitsubishi stamp system. Systems such as this, which address public health issues, will demand higher costs than the more simple place-of-origin verification system needed for Oita shiitake. However, it is expected that the investment by both private and public sector to prevent public health crises such as avian flu are worthwhile in the long run.

The Kyoto system also shows examples of how to use simple ICT at low cost—websites and mobile phone sites—to give consumers direct access to product history information. Finally, the Kyoto Poultry Traceability System gives an example of an effective use of consumer surveys to carefully identify the information required to collect and share in order to build consumer confidence. Without the surveys and planning, time and resources might have been spent collecting unneeded information or crucial information might not have been recorded.

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1. Prof. J. George
   (posted 10 June 2009 / 06:30:36 PM)
   
   A good study indeed to keep one updated with the new developments in the area of food safety. The authors have in a short and concise WP givena concise lessons fron the study. They need to be complimented on the effort. The authors must be encouraged to develop this WP into a full blown research paper. However, some comments that must find placein the full paper are as follows: (1) Can these lessons be generalised over different developing countries and production landscape where issues of livelihood and food security are paramount? (2) The public sector certainly needs to play a dominant role and hence the funding quantum and pattern needs a different exclusive treatment to make it more localised. Who will do it? (3) How do we get this traceability into a major concern as in Japan itself only 20% are following/participating in the ITES initiative for traceability.
   (4) Two case study products have certain limitations in other developing countries as they have a different definition of smallholder producer and these two products are not produced on an industrial scale dimensions. What adjustements are required or needs to incorported to the study to make it acceptable/practicable on wider spectrum of developing countries?