FAQs

Procurant USA LLC (Procurant) is a privately held company providing software and services to retailers, foodservice organizations and their global network of trading partners across the fresh food supply chain.

Procurant is based in Watsonville, California, with additional offices in:

• Los Gatos, California
• Boca Raton, Florida
• Pune, India

Procurant is a privately-held company. The primary investor is GLP Properties (www.glprop.com), a leading global investment manager and business builder in logistics, real estate, infrastructure, finance and related technologies.

Procurant serves companies across the food supply chain, including retailers, food producers, shippers, brokers, wholesalers and foodservice organizations.

Procurant provides solutions to the majority of major fresh produce and floral companies in North America.

Some of Procurant's notable customers include Albertsons Companies, Alex Lee/MDI, IKEA, TravelCenters America, Sodexo, Tanimura & Antle, Turning Stone Casino and many more.

Yes, the Procurant One platform can serve as an integration hub for any type of commercial connection. The technology is designed to connect buyers and sellers across a common platform.

EDI is an older technology that requires more cost, configuration effort and ongoing maintenance than newer ways of connecting with trading partners.

Procurant provides an alternative to pure EDI, but it can also work with your existing EDI environment to save you time and money when you need to add new trading partners or make changes to the information you are sharing.

Early in discussions with any potential customer, Procurant provides buyers with an estimated ROI specific to their scenario. On average, buyers save between 3-5% on their annual spending placed through the system, although gains in pricing, efficiency and speed-to-decisions with better data can yield significantly higher returns.

Yes! While the Buyer application on Procurant One is designed for the unique characteristics of fresh food ordering and delivery, the system can support buying and selling any commodity item. 

The benefits of upgrading to a modern order management system for fresh food typically come from gains in efficiency, reduction in shrink, tighter controls over order changes, and increased visibility into market trends and opportunities.

With Procurant One, order management remains integrated with inventory and ERP, usually at a much lower cost and with far more flexibility than older systems are able to provide.

No. Procurant has no relationship with iTradeNetwork, nor does our technology integrate with theirs to provide any kind of "back end" integration for order management.

IoT is short for "Internet of Things" and is a quick way to refer to sensors and devices that connect to networks and transmit data.

Procurant offers IoT solutions in the form of sensors and gateways that can be deployed across a customer's physical location to measure and monitor a variety of conditions.

Sensors (either from Procurant or 3rd parties) and communication gateways provide a consolidated view of any given location.

Typically, Procurant solutions are used in greenhouses and warehouses to monitor temperature, humidity, CO2, light levels, etc.

The Food Safety Modernization Action (FSMA) was signed into law in 2011. Section 204, the Food Traceability Rule, was drafted to identify the foods for which additional traceability records are required to protect public health. It is called the “final rule,” because the FDA started working on a draft list in 2014 and published the final Food Traceability List (FTL) on November 15, 2022. The objective of section 204 of FSMA is to reduce foodborne illnesses and/or deaths by expediting the identification and requiring removal of potentially contaminated food from the market.

Section 204 of FSMA establishes additional traceability recordkeeping requirements for commercial farms, packing operations and food processing facilities. While all foods are required to be traceable, certain high-risk foods must adhere to a higher standard. This higher standard dictates that specific information about the food, known as Key Data Elements (KDEs), must be recorded as the food travels through the supply chain. KDE records must be retrieved within 24 hours if there is a request by the FDA or another regulatory authority. Exemptions include home gardeners, food preservers and direct-to-consumer sales at restaurants, retail food establishments and farmers’ markets.

For the complete list, click here.

• Certain Cheeses
• Shell Eggs
• Nut Butters
• Cucumbers (fresh)
• Herbs (fresh)
• Leafy Greens (fresh)
• Leafy Greens (fresh-cut)
• Melons (fresh)
• Peppers (fresh)
• Sprouts (fresh)
• Tomatoes (fresh
• Tropical Tree Fruits (fresh)
• Fruits (fresh)
• Vegetables (other than leafy greens fresh-cut)
• Finfish (fresh and frozen)
• Smoked Finfish (refrigerated and frozen)
• Crustaceans (fresh and frozen)
• Molluscan shellfish, bivalves (fresh and frozen)
• Ready to Eat Deli Salads (refrigerated)

Upon request by the FDA, all records must be made available to an authorized FDA representative, upon request, within 24 hours (or within some reasonable time to which FDA has agreed) after the request, along with any information needed to understand these records.

In most cases, records containing the information required under the final rule must be maintained for two years from when the records were created or obtained. Records maintained by a retail food establishment or restaurant for food purchased directly from a farm must be maintained for 180 days. A previous traceability plan must be retained for two years after the plan has been updated. The traceability plan must be updated as needed to ensure that the information provided reflects the current practices and to ensure compliance with the requirements.

You must maintain and provide specific information associated with different events in the food supply chain to supply chain partners and link that information to a traceability lot code. The rule identifies the following events in the food supply chain as the Critical Tracking Events (CTEs) for which traceability records containing Key Data Elements (KDEs) are required to be maintained and provided:

• Harvesting
• Cooling (before initial packing)
• Initial packing of a RAC (other than food obtained from a fishing vessel)
• First land-based receiving (of food obtained from a fishing vessel)
• Shipping
• Receiving
• Transformation of a food

Traceability lot codes are central to the rule’s operation. They are used to identify food(s) as they move through the supply chain and maintain other records relating to their activities. At each CTE, required records must include the traceability lot code and KDE linked to the relevant traceability lot. In addition to records of certain CTEs, entities subject to the rule must establish and maintain a traceability plan. The traceability plan contains information related to an entity’s traceability procedures and operations and is intended to help regulators understand the records they review. The traceability plan must include the following:

• A description of the procedures used to maintain the required records
• A description of the procedures used to identify foods on the FTL that an entity manufactures, processes, packs, or holds. For farms, this includes any foods on the FTL that the farm grows.
• A description of how traceability lot codes are assigned (if applicable);
• A point of contact for questions regarding your traceability plan and records; 
• For farms that grow or raise food on the FTL, a farm map shows the areas where the food is grown or raised. The farm map must show the location and name of each field (or other growing area) where the food on the FTL is grown, including geographic coordinates and any additional information needed to identify the location of each field or growing site.
• For aquaculture farms, the farm map must show the location and name of each container (e.g., pond, pool, tank, cage) where the seafood on the FTL is raised, including geographic coordinates and any other information needed to identify the location of each container.

Section 204 of FSMA went into effect in January 2023. However, the FDA has given companies until January 20, 2026, to become fully compliant.

The violation of any recordkeeping requirement under section 204 of FSMA is prohibited. However, depending on the nature of the violation, the FDA intends to allow individuals and firms to take prompt and voluntary corrective action before enforcement action is initiated. If compliance is not met (by one or multiple entities) voluntarily, the FDA can bring civil and criminal activities to prosecute violators, holding them responsible. While the FDA does not have the authority to impose fines for violations of section 204 of FSMA, these prosecutions open the way for private actions.

Brokers will have to work with their onsite physical locations to achieve traceability. The party that handles the product is responsible for the collection and the records' accuracy. These physical locations, even though they are not invoicing the customer, must receive the appropriate KDEs from the suppliers that ship to them and reassemble.

As a wholesaler, or anyone that buys their product from others and receives it in their warehouse, the new traceability requirements will require you also save and store all the KDEs sent in from your suppliers. These KDEs will likely be unique to each Purchase Order or Bill of Lading. Traceability data must be collected by those that physically receive products. This means that collecting and storing KDEs is also applicable if you receive a product on behalf of another. For example, you may receive, store and perhaps recondition a product for someone else. You may even run a repack operation or a Cross Dock facility. Be aware that those who take physical possession of food on the Food Traceability List are responsible for collecting and sending traceability data through the supply chain.

Growers are key participants with traceability because they start the process and are the creators (harvesters) of food products and the Lot Codes.