TraceGains and Esko Alliance Helps Brands Reduce Packaging Risk and Accelerate Time to Market with Unified Spec Ecosystem

New Packaging Specification Management Solution Connects Ingredients, Packaging, and Artwork for End-to-End Visibility, Automated Change Control, and Audit-Ready Approvals

WESTMINSTER, Colo., Feb. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- TraceGains, the leading provider of compliance, quality, and innovation solutions for the food and beverage (F&B) industry, today announced the launch of TraceGains Packaging Specification Management, featuring native integration with  Esko's WebCenter Go packaging artwork management solution. Together, the two Veralto portfolio companies are furthering an integrated "source-to-shelf" digital ecosystem for the food, beverage, and consumer packaged goods (CPG) industries by unifying ingredient specifications, packaging data, product formulas, finished goods, and artwork approvals into a single, connected ecosystem.

As packaging complexity increases, brands face growing risk from fragmented systems and manual workflows, exacerbating the need for a fully integrated NPD workflow from source to shelf. TraceGains Packaging Specification Management extends the company's Specification Management platform to packaging and artwork, creating a single source of truth reducing errors, improving compliance, and accelerating global product launches.

"Packaging errors remain one of the most common and costly sources of risk for CPG brands," said Gary Iles, CMO, Esko & TraceGains. "By unifying ingredients, packaging, and artwork in one connected ecosystem, we're mitigating the risk of miscommunication between teams and errors that could lead to costly brand recalls, reputational damage or worse."

TraceGains Packaging Management addresses a critical industry challenge: changes to ingredients, allergens, or claims often fail to cascade to packaging and artwork in time. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, nearly half (21 of 45) US F&B recalls were caused by undeclared allergens or other packaging and labelling errors.

With automated change control, TraceGains Packaging Specification Management ensures packaging and artwork reviews are triggered whenever upstream product data changes, preventing mismatches before they reach production. The solution provides a single, auditable system of record for product and packaging specifications, with defined Level 1, 2, and 3 spec relationships and packaging assemblies that support complex, one-to-many finished good relationships. Deep integration with Esko WebCenter Go enables digital artwork approval workflows, delivering full visibility and audit readiness across teams and suppliers.

"Together, Esko and TraceGains are redefining what's possible when it comes to source to shelf by connecting packaging excellence with supply chain intelligence," continued Iles. "Now, brands have access to unprecedented clarity and control across their packaging and compliance workflows."

Customer research conducted by TraceGains found teams across food, beverage, private label, and adjacent industries struggle with siloed systems, email-based approvals, and limited visibility into how changes ripple across SKUs. These challenges are echoed in Esko's 2026 Packaging Trends Report, which identified lack of system integration and outdated manual processes as top data management challenges facing packaging teams.

For more information, please visit tracegains.com.

About TraceGains
Founded in 2008, TraceGains has revolutionized the food and beverage industry with the first Source-to-Shelf networked ecosystem. By digitizing processes and insights using advanced Artificial Intelligence, TraceGains provides comprehensive solutions for compliance, nutritional calculation and labeling, new product development, environmental, social, and governance, and packaging in collaboration with Esko and other Veralto companies. Our clients capitalize on these tools to navigate the complexities of the global food and beverage industry, ensuring safer, compliant products reach customers faster and at reduced costs, thereby creating a competitive edge in their market launches. Trusted by over 1,500 global clients, including more than half of the top 100 food and beverage manufacturers, the TraceGains network connects brands through a vast global ecosystem of 100,000 supplier locations and over 600,000 ingredients and products.

SOURCE TraceGains