TraceGains boosts presence in European F&B industry with hugely successful Together conference

TraceGains, the leading business platform that serves as a networked ecosystem, connecting food and beverage (F&B) brands with ingredient and packaging suppliers, continued its rapid expansion into the European F&B sector with a record attendance at its hugely successful Together conference.

More than 3,200 professionals from across the food and drink industry took part in the annual virtual Together experience recently, which featured more than 60 speakers and thought leaders from across the F&B ecosystem, including from some of the best-known brands in the sector.

“We were thrilled to welcome this record number of attendees to our latest annual event, underlining the continued success of our expansion in the European market,” said Gary Iles, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development with TraceGains. “The overwhelming response showcased the strength of the growing TraceGains community across Europe and its dedication to innovation, sustainability, and collaboration on a truly global scale.”

Introducing the Guardians of F&B
One of the key themes of the two-day event was the introduction of the concept of ‘F&B Guardians’ - heroes of the industry who have all come together to tackle the industry’s biggest challenges. “We worked with all the speakers at Together 2025 to offer specialized tracks covering FSQ, Sustainability, Innovation, Workforce, and Suppliers,” said Gary. “Each Guardian then talked to the challenges they were looking to overcome and how digitalization was a key tool in the process.”

One of these speakers was Lewis Rogers-Duffield, Lead Supplier Quality Manager, Europe, with Baker & Baker. He explained how, as one of Europe's leading suppliers of bakery products across a range of categories and industry channels, Baker & Baker has 12 manufacturing sites across the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal. “As a result, we utilize a wide range of raw materials and packaging and maintain a significant database of approved suppliers,” said Lewis. “Our manufacturing sites have their own quality managers and quality teams that focus on local production, but with regards to tasks such as supplier management, this is managed by our supply quality team within our central quality function. This means that we manage all our suppliers from a technical perspective on behalf of all 12 sites,” he said. “So, if there is a project in one factory and we approve a supplier for them, that supplier is automatically approved for our entire manufacturing chain.”

Streamlined, smarter, futureproof
“Our supplier approval process has always been quite robust, and it's always been well received by auditors, regulators, and customers alike,” said Lewis. “But a couple of years ago, we got talking about what we could do to streamline things to work smarter, to futureproof our supplier approval processes, and mostly – and thankfully – to retire the very old Excel database that takes about ten minutes to start because it has just so much historic data on there.”

Lewis told Together attendees that these processes have always relied heavily on chasing and tracking emails as well as manual document review and sorting. “We considered our objectives and what we really wanted to gain from this project,” he said. “These were to be able to automate our processes and find a solution that allows us to reduce admin time, and to be able to spend more time on high value tasks and proactive supplier management. We wanted to create a consistent approach to approvals where we could be presented with the good and the bad and be able to make an informed risk-based decision.

“We also wanted to provide our local teams with a self-service solution,” added Lewis. “Being quite a small team, we're often traveling for audits, supplier meetings, and other visits to sites. We wanted to be able to empower our teams to feel confident in demonstrating supplier approval to customers and auditors without relying on too much support from my team who might not always be available.

“We also wanted to find a solution that was a one stop shop for supplier management, a place where we can keep our procedures, our approvals, audits, and horizon scanning all under one roof, rather than going between different systems and databases to access the information. And we wanted to manage supplier audit corrective actions in a way that reduces backwards and forwards emails and deadline chasing.

“We're now 12 months through our implementation process with TraceGains, and we are really happy to say that we have managed to achieve each and every one of these goals through our integration of TraceGains into our day-to-day ways of working.”

Serving more than 1,500 clients around the world, including half of the top 100 F&B manufacturers, the TraceGains network delivers comprehensive solutions for compliance, nutritional calculation and labeling, NPD, ESG and packaging. Connecting brands to their supply chains, TraceGains uses advanced AI to enrich data and automate processes across its global network of 100,000 supplier locations and more than 600,000 ingredients and products.

“This connected compliance, quality, ESG, and product innovation solution is the first true ‘source-to-shelf’ networked solution for the food and beverage industry,” said Gary Iles. “This year’s Together event took participants on a journey through the future of food and beverage. We were able to demonstrate that innovation isn’t light years away - it’s happening now.

“TraceGains’ rapid product development, AI-driven compliance, and efficient source-to-shelf solutions are transforming the industry today,” he said. “As companies face increasing pressure to innovate faster, ensure compliance, and streamline supply chains, TraceGains continues to lead the charge, equipping F&B brands across Europe with the tools they need to push the boundaries of what’s possible.”

For more on how TraceGains can help your business eliminate inefficiencies in the ingredient sourcing process, to scale faster, enhance transparency, and ensure compliance with regulatory standards, visit www.TraceGains.com 

Bron: TraceGains - partner FoodPro Network