NSF-CMi Certification is launching a new service called Intelligent Assurance at Fruit Logistica in Berlin this week.

The service enables farmers and producers to make sense of the huge amounts of information required at individual farm level and use it for strategic and tactical decision-making.

Retailers seek partners who can consistently deliver quality and value, at the same time as providing assurance on a growing range of consumer and stakeholder issues, according to David Richardson, managing director of NSF-CMi Certification. Suppliers increasingly need to understand and manage an increasingly complex range of issues, including food safety, social compliance and sustainability often across large and disparate supply chains.

Accessed through a web-based portal system, Intelligent Assurance measn information owners can call off management reports and drill down into the data to understand and compare performance across areas as wide ranging as food safety standards, risk exposures, environmental and ethical issues, depending on what their customers’ requirements are.

Richardson said: “It’s a unique combination of compliance assessment, risk quantification and issue management, delivered using on-line data capture and web-based services. Our tailored service enables users to segment their producers by performance and risk, to improve targeting of resources and facilitate continuous improvement. If a customer wants to see the position on any specific aspect of the business, the relevant report can be called off quickly and easily. It provides customers with a superior service and the reassurance that their brand reputation is protected. And that’s vitally important in today’s competitive market.”