In spite of the reduction of physical barriers to the movement of goods throughout the European Community, the lack of co-ordination between participants in the transport chain means that small producers of perishables continue to face debilitating obstacles to the successful export of their products.

OCC formed part of a pan-European consortium collaborating on the EU-funded FOODEX project, whose objective was to address this problem.

FOODEX is a fully-integrated telematics service providing and supporting information, both online and offline, which is useful to all participants in the export and import of perishables. Its principal aim is to benefit directly the small agricultural producer; it is also intended and expected that other participants in the process, such as transport firms and import wholesalers, will benefit. A recurring complaint of producers, transporters and importers alike in their commercial dealings is lack of reliability, whether in terms of punctuality, promptness of payment or quality of goods.

In addition to providing operators with a means of tracking progress of a product order at any stage of its transit, FOODEX aims to eliminate mistrust as far as possible by gathering information about the performance of companies operating within the perishables sector. Upon completion of a deal, each participant records his level of satisfaction with all aspects of the deal; the sum of this information then forms a database to which all operators have access.

It is hoped that this will promote a greater degree of co-ordination and cohesion amongst operators in this sector within the European Community, and accelerate regulation and standardisation of methods of payment, delivery, packing and invoicing; and all aspects of commercial activity between operators in the sector, to the benefit of all involved.