GDSN Powers Ordering Websites
Vendors and Distributors are quickly preparing for the next phase of the GS1 US Foodservice Initiative, synchronizing product marketing and nutritional information. These attributes form the critical base of information used by the foodservice customer in deciding what products to purchase, and therefore it is critical for Distributors to deliver expanded accurate product information on their online catalogs and ordering websites.
For both vendors and distributors, GDSN is a better and more efficient way to exchange marketing and nutritional information. For vendors, GDSN provides a single non-proprietary method of providing this information to all trading partners. For distributors, GDSN provides a way of receiving this information on a continuous basis, knowing that vendors are focused on implementing a sustainable GDSN process rather than manually completing spreadsheets each time a distributor calls asking for this information; or leaving it up to the distributor to rekey information from product literature or product packaging, if at all.
Several Sync/PDI users are already preparing for Foodservice Phase 2. The Marketing and Nutritional attributes represent a significant increase in the number of data attributes to be populated. In addition, these data fields may be coming from different departments or systems within the manufacturer’s organization. To meet the needs of Foodservice Phase 2, Sync/PDI has been recently enhanced to include these additional fields / validations and to provide special capabilities to help users integrate several departments’ data into one GDSN product record.
If you would like more information on the foodservice initiative, the pilot or Sync/PDI, click here.