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Article source: Computer Weekly News Plan to monitor food panic Bill Goodwin

Supermarkets and food manufacturers are to track bread, milk, cereals and other basic foods through the supply chain as part of a nationwide assessment of the impact of the millennium bug on food supplies.

Consultants will trace key foods from manufacturing plants to warehouses, cold stores and wholesalers to the supermarket shelves, assessing the likelihood of year 2000 failures at each stage.

The study, due to be completed by October, follows industry concerns that panic buying could have a far greater impact on the availability of food supplies than any Y2K failures.

"The retailers and manufacturers are going to be ready in time. But we need to reassure people that it will be business as normal," said Tim Cooper-Jones, chairman of Initiative 2000, a group of major retailers and food companies backing the scheme.

The group will appoint independent consultants to visit suppliers and distributors in the UK to assess their Y2K programmes next month.

The consultants will be asked to trace the supply chain back overseas in cases where products have no alternative UK suppliers.

The study will focus on a list of key items such as bread, cereals, milk and meats which appear regularly on weekly shopping lists.

But retailers believe its findings will give a good indication of the impact of Y2K on other food supplies which are likely to share much of the same distribution infrastructure.

The consultants will be asked to select key commodities for full end-to-end evaluations.

In the case of milk, for example, the studies would include evaluations of bottling plants, embedded chips within refrigeration systems and cold stores, and the readiness of transport companies.

Evaluations will be carried out across the UK, assessing samples of both large and small suppliers, to give an overall picture of the UK's readiness, said Cooper-Jones.

The group, which plans to issue a tender for the work this week, aims to release its initial findings by July.

Catch up with all the latest Y2K issues in Millennium.

Maybe you have a burning issue that you want to share. Go visit a Forum

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), May 13, 1999

Answers

"The retailers and manufacturers are going to be ready in time. But we need to reassure people that it will be business as normal," said Tim Cooper-Jones, chairman of Initiative 2000, a group of major retailers and food companies backing the scheme. The group will appoint independent consultants to visit suppliers and distributors in the UK to assess their Y2K programmes next month. The consultants will be asked to trace the supply chain back overseas in cases where products have no alternative UK suppliers. End Snip Please note that the quote states that all of the retailers and suppliers WILL BE READY, which certainly means they are not ready now. This group is for the UK, not the USA. Has any similar thing occurred here? I'm still not convince. smfdoc

-- smfdoc (smfdoc@aol.com), May 13, 1999.