Digital Foodie and GS1 Finland Sign a Partnering Agreement to Launch a Data Verification Service

HELSINKI, February 23, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Digital Foodie, creator of the award winning Foodie.fm platform, has expanded its product portfolio with a new product, Foodie Verification, and signed a partnering agreement with GS1 Finland to provide data verification service for grocery products. GS1 Finland is an organization that maintains and develops standards for supply chain and provides national product information data pool for retailers and supply chains. 

     (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20131125/654579 )

Digital Foodie is the service provider for product data verification and enhancement service that GS1 provides for their grocery retail customers, logistics partners and product manufacturers. Through the service Foodie will inspect and ensure integrity of product information of tens of thousands of food products stored in the national GS1 database. Data inspection and validation is based on Foodie's new product called Foodie Verification.

Foodie Verification includes an intuitive iPad application, linked wirelessly to a bar code scanner, and a cloud-based server module that connects to the data pool. It offers a professional and modern way to check and enhance product information in stores, warehouses and distribution centers or at source in manufacturer´s premises. By enabling verification and aggregation of data in multiple locations at the same time, the cost of validation can be reduced drastically. Foodie Verification enables the rapid correction and amendment of missing information in coordination with product manufacturers. The intuitive and easy-to-use software guides users in collecting, checking and entering the required data, such as ingredients, nutritional information, storage information and package measurements, in right format.

Grocery business is moving online 

There is a growing need for accurate product information all over the world. "Transportation and distribution centers are utilizing more sophisticated software and level of automation is increasing and lack of reliable product information creates enormous problems. On the consumer side online grocery business is growing at a pace of 10% to 100% per year depending on the market and consumers demand accurate and rich product information. Foodie provides standardized, fully managed service to verify and enhance the data to be ready for both consumers as well as businesses," explains Kalle Koutajoki, CEO of Digital Foodie.

From regulatory standpoint EU has issued Regulation No 1169, which makes provisioning of the extended product data mandatory for food and beverage items. Until now providing product information has been voluntary, leading to inadequate information.

"Comprehensive and standardized product information benefits manufacturing and retail industry as well as consumers. Foodie's technology and retail knowledge makes them a perfect partner for us and enables us to go through our massive data pool cost effectively," says Tero Rautsola, CEO of GS1 Finland .

Besides a digital tool, Foodie created an efficient process and clear guidelines to collect consistent, high quality information. With Foodie Verification's resource planning features the entire process is designed to be smooth. Product picking and returns are fast and easy. Data collectors' work is well structured and information that is inserted is accurate and unambiguous. Foodie Verification is part of Foodie's product suite and available as a fully managed verification service including staffing or as a self-service SaaS product for self-inspections.

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Media contact: Kalle Koutajoki, +358-40-701-2397, [email protected]

Digital Foodie Product suite: http://company.foodie.fm

Foodie.fm is a SaaS platform for online groceries designed by Digital Foodie. It provides a fully personalized grocery shopping service used by major retailers and brands. For consumers, Foodie provides a service that empowers people to shop online, consume smarter and eat better. The core of the service is formed by highly personalized food and product recommendations that make everyday shopping easy and fun. For retailers, the Foodie.fm platform provides all the tools needed to run modern online operations, click and collect and home deliveries. Foodie.fm is currently available on web, iPad, iPhone, Android and Windows Phone. Digital Foodie operates currently in Finland, Baltics, Russia and UK and is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland.  https://www.foodie.fi

GS1 Finland Oy, part of international GS1 community, is a non-profit and neutral organization, that develops and maintains the most widely-used supply chain standards system and helps their customer to enhance and manage the delivery process. GS1 solutions are used by over 1,4 million companies and GS1 product identification is included in more than 6 billion product transaction every day.  GS1 Finland Oy is responsible for Synkka product information database content and maintenance. GS1 Finland Oy is a fully owned subsidiary of  Finnish Chamber of Commerce.  http://www.gs1.fi.

SOURCE Digital Foodie