Member Article

productDNA secures 50% of UK grocery market as Sainsbury’s signs up

Sainsbury’s has become the latest retailer to sign up to productDNA, a platform from GS1 UK, designed to share product data across the retail industry.

Half (50%) of the retail grocery market has now committed to building the cross-industry platform, which will house more than 170 product attributes, from weight and dimensions to customs, excise and VAT requirements.

The platform allows suppliers to enter core product data into a single pan-industry catalogue (so suppliers will not have to enter their product data into multiple systems for every retailer they supply). The catalogue will be updated in real time via the automated data feeds and be verified by industry standards body GS1 UK.

Sainsbury’s will test the concept ahead of the next stage of development - with their pilot set to begin in early 2020.

Graham Biggart, Sainsbury’s director of commercial operations, said: “We will initially focus on branded ambient grocery and look forward to extending productDNA to other product categories as well as our own-brand ranges.”

Gary Lynch, chief executive of GS1 UK’s, said: “Suppliers of branded products will share all their product data through a single, standardised process rather than having to complete new-line forms per product for each retailer. In trials we are already seeing the benefits of this streamlined approach, with some brands seeing data accuracy improvements of up to 32%.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Raoul Duke .