In 2022, I wrote a piece in Logistics Tech Outlook on “Getting Logistics & Distribution Data to FLOW with Interoperability”. At the time, our supply chains were bouncing back from the COVID shock and there was broad acknowledgement of the need to break down data silos to build more resilient and agile networks. The White House’s formation of the Freight Logistics Optimization Initiative (FLOW) underscored this urgency:
“Resiliency—the ability to recover from an unexpected shock—requires visibility, agility and redundancy. The lack of digital infrastructure and transparency makes our supply chains brittle and unable to adapt when faced with a shock.” —The White House, March 15, 2022.
Initiatives like FLOW launched after COVID as a public-private partnership to digitize our supply chains for agility and resilience, are making progress. I want to highlight specific initiatives I have had the opportunity to participate in and observe—in particular, the supply chain optimization and resilience (SCORe) coalition, the supply chain of the future initiative spearheaded by the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA) and COSSAF, the collaboratory for open software and services for agriculture and food.
Scored A Standards Win!
An undertaking I wrote about in 2022 is the SCORe coalition, which leveraged the network to assemble and evolve its activities into a formal standardization process: ASTM International’s Committee F49 on digital information in the supply chain. ASTM International, a nearly 100-year old non-profit organization with over 13,000 established standards, is driving the F49 Committee’s scope: “the formulation of definitions and terminology and development of recommended practices and guides related to the sharing and use of digital information about the supply chain.”
“Data doesn’t move food. Collaboration does.”
As of today, Committee F49 on digital information in the supply chain has eight established and active subcommittees focused on harmonizing thoughts on terminology, interoperability, essential data elements, recommended practices, enabling technology, authenticity of information and more.
Get Fresh With Data In Action!
In the food and agriculture space where I focus, the US kept fresh produce on store shelves during COVID, but the herculean effort it took was challenging and costly and far from optimized. The crisis exposed serious digital information gaps. Even in noncrisis times, the lack of data and interoperability leads to lost margin, higher costs and greater food waste. In 2021, my team at the Mixing Bowl wrote an issue report for the Farm Foundation on the need for and benefits of greater data interoperability in food and agriculture.
With leadership from the International Fresh Produce Association and under the banner of the “Supply Chain of the Future, we assembled hundreds of fresh produce industry actors to collectively develop open technology and business solutions for a more digital supply chain. In December 2024, 126 actors from across the Americas mapped information data gaps through “event storming.” In early 2025, we held online “collabathons” with actors from Europe, Australasia, the Middle East and Asia to jointly identify the industry’s most pressing challenges that needed to be addressed. These conversations launched four working groups:
• Shelf-life Prediction & Dynamic Incentives - two groups leveraging data to optimize freshness and value, and reward those who add value along the supply chain.
• Harmonized Standards & Smart Data Escrow - two groups creating a common language and methodology and landscaping innovative technologies to share data in a sovereign way. The objective of these working groups is to showcase use cases, collaborative tech demos and pilots at the IFPA Global Produce Show, October 16-18 in Anaheim, CA. This work is building industry-wide support for the development and implementation of open, interoperable fresh supply chain solutions in 2026 and beyond.
Smart Data Escrow-Tackling the Privacy Boogeyman
As I wrote in 2022, data privacy concerns often block progress toward interoperability. Growers, shippers, retailers and companies in between fear that sharing sensitive data with trading partners will lead to unintended uses. Smart data escrow addresses this by enabling relevant information sharing while protecting data sovereignty—a critical enabler of trust.
As Steve Alaerts, chair of the IFPA supply chain council and co-Leader of the supply chain of the future initiative aptly put it: “Data doesn’t move food. Collaboration does.
Indeed, human and institutional interoperability, supported by data-sovereignty technologies, will unlock the agility and resiliency our supply chains need now and in the future.
Scaling Collaboration Beyond Fresh Produce-COSSAF
The “collective impact” approach of pre-competitive industry collaboration and open-source technologies is something my colleagues and I are now working to scale beyond the fresh produce sector. We recently launched COSSAF—the collaboratory for open software and services in Ag & Food. It’s a nonprofit dedicated to breaking down data silos by developing open, interoperable data frameworks across the food and agriculture supply chain.
This past June, my colleagues introduced COSSAF’s vision at the World Trade Organization through a joint event hosted by ASTM and Steptoe. Supply Chain Collaboration—a new model for international standards development brought together policymakers, standards organizations and industry leaders for case studies and interactive polls exploring new models for collaboration. COSSAF was highlighted as a neutral, open-source platform to coordinate fragmented efforts, build the “plumbing and piping” for data exchange and keep solutions user-driven and accessible across the supply chain.
The Call to Action: Moving Beyond Talk to True Collaboration
The progress made through SCORe, ASTM’s F49 Committee, the supply chain of the future and now COSSAF shows what’s possible when industry leaders work together pre-competitively with a shared purpose. Yet too many efforts remain fragmented, duplicative or stuck in endless discussion. To build supply chains that are agile, transparent and resilient, we must move beyond talking and working in silos. Now is the time for coordinated action, shared innovation and collective problem-solving.
These initiatives are open to anyone who shares this vision and they depend on broad participation to succeed. We hope you will join us.
