And there’s a lot to keep ahead of. Sustainability, circularity, new protein sources like insect-based feed, changing legislation, technology-assisted audits, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and more. All these are occurring simultaneously and in a competitive market, giving companies, consultants, and Certification Bodies both challenges and opportunities.
Our approach to innovation has always been with the interests of our community in mind, but never in isolation. I’ve written before about how GMP+ International’s journey has been marked by collaboration, experimentation, and a commitment to share knowledge – and we have always sought our community’s insights when choosing where to focus our efforts.
To help us we again asked renowned research firm Ipsos to discover which of our innovations our stakeholders most value, and where we should aim to innovate next.
On the right track
Ipsos found that 81% of our stakeholders think GMP+ International is innovative, with our redesigned scheme, the Feed Legislation website, and the GMP+ Academy all scoring highly. It is encouraging to know the community values these initiatives.
Resoundingly, 85% want us to increase the scope of our existing scheme to cover more on sustainability. More than half of respondents said sustainability was the most relevant trend in the sector, and that they wanted us to play our role in setting the benchmark as independent experts. This aligns not only with what we’ve already heard from the community, but also with our own plans and the expansion of our GMP+ Feed Responsibility Assurance offerings.
Another 62% said they wanted us to work on digitisation, both of our own services but also in areas like remote auditing and the use of AI and blockchain. For GMP+ we’ve already digitised our scheme documents making them easier to search and translate, and in our latest annual report our team have detailed other ways they are working with our community on other solutions.
Like with the feedback we received from our previous survey with Ipsos, it’s good to know that our plans are still in line with what the community expects. We’re on the right track.
Go further together
More broadly though the results showed our stakeholders and GMP+ share the same view of what our role in innovation should be; to align new developments and set the standards that support safe and sustainable feed, worldwide.
Fragmentation is an issue here. GMP+ does not need to regulate every single aspect of the industry’s work, but for those areas where standards and standardisation are valuable, we can avoid unnecessary disruption if there is consistency and synergy across the sector. That means we should not passively wait until the sector has embedded contradictory practices, but proactively work with the sector to understand where and how new innovations should be standardised.
The good news is that our stakeholders recognise the potential risk of fragmentation, and confirmed that they want to actively participate in creating and developing these innovations with GMP+ International.
Community-led innovation
On two topics we have already put the call out for innovation partners; EUDR, and digital audits.
There is potential to implement a digital auditing system, where a digital supplier creates a system for Certification Bodies (CBs) to use, that meets GMP+ requirements, and provides a platform for companies and CBs to seamlessly and continuously upload and audit the necessary paperwork. We are working with a CB user group to discuss digital options in the community, but we know that any real-world application would need to be tested and improved before being implemented more widely. We are keen to establish trials with CBs and technology partners to see what can be achieved.
On the EU Deforestation-free Regulations (EUDR) a range of different tools and ways of working are worth exploring – from artificial intelligence and blockchain, to platforms for sharing information and new ways of working. This is a traceability and chain-of-command challenge, and we are looking for innovation partners to look at how we can support our companies with their EUDR compliance.
We are seen as an innovative organisation in large part because we do not innovate in isolation. We choose to work in partnership with the community, and this applies as much to our services as it does to new developments in the industry. Our belief is that innovation is a team sport, and if you want to be on the team we hope to hear from you.