The Meet the Grower program at the supermarket chain will help consumers find out where their food comes from.
The massive grocery store chain in Australia, Woolworths, has just announced that it has started a program using QR codes to give its shoppers the opportunity to learn more about where the fresh fruits and vegetables they are purchasing have been sourced and who is behind growing them.
The program started on July 1 and will continue onward, growing throughout the rest of the year.
By scanning the QR codes, customers will be able to learn more about the fresh produce that they are purchasing. Using smartphones to scan the barcodes will give access to the photo, website, and additional information about the growers of the fruits and vegetables, including the length of time that they have been supplying to Woolworths. The black and white squares are located on the packaging of the products and will give the potential for far more details than would be possible on the limited space of a product package or sticker.
The first QR codes will be placed on locally sourced apples, but it will expand over time.
At the launch of the program, the QR codes were available only for apples from the Montague Fresh fruit supplier from Victoria. However, over the upcoming two months, the barcodes will start to appear on a growing number of fruits and vegetables until the total will reach 57 items. By the end of this year, it is expected that there will be nearly 100 products included in the Meet the Grower program.
According to the head of produce, Paul Harker, at Woolworths, the QR codes program was created in order to respond to the demand of consumers to be able to learn more about where their produce is coming from. He explained that 96 percent of the fresh vegetables and fruits that are sold within the stores are Australian grown and these barcodes allow consumers to find out about that, as well as specifically which farms have provided them. Offering the information over mobile is much more practical than trying to create packaging or signage with extensive information.
