Trustwell’s 2023: Our Year in Review

With 2023 officially over and all eyes on 2024, we are taking one last look at Trustwell's top achievements, notable announcements, and thought leaders’ insights from this past year. With everything we did last year across our products, services, and within the industry, we’re proud to present our year-in-review:

2023: By the Numbers

When we started the year, the food industry knew us as two pioneers— FoodLogiQ and ESHA Research. By February, we introduced ourselves as one unified powerhouse: Trustwell.

This strategic merger has enabled us to offer Trustwell Connect, a robust platform that merges six synergistic tools that help provide greater operational efficiencies and transparency throughout the entire food supply chain. Today, Trustwell Connect supports over 2,500 companies globally — from food and supplement manufacturers and grocery retailers to produce packers and popular restaurant chains.

In the first year under our new brand umbrella, we:

• Processed at least $3 Million in incident reimbursements
• Recorded 38.5 Million critical tracking events (CTEs)
• For over 120K partners with more than 95K supplier locations
• And added nearly 280K documents along the way.

With the FSMA 204 deadline looming and full implementation required by January 20, 2026, we’re proud to report metrics like these as they serve as a testament to our proactive support for our customers, facilitating their FSMA 204 compliance journey.

New Year, New Name, New Look — Same Trusted Expertise

Our biggest announcement came in early 2023 when we (re)introduced ourselves with a complete rebrand as Trustwell. By August 2023, we had a new home online when we launched our new website to reflect our updated look and improve the experience visitors have when they stop by. 

Our mission? To change the food industry. Our promise? To set a new standard for food safety, quality, and product transparency across the entire supply chain. Our driving goal is to be a catalyst for positive and impactful change in the food industry. We are dedicated to elevating food safety, quality, and product transparency — from recipe development to recall management.

Our new name reflects the essence of our mission, as articulated by our CEO, Stephen Bruce, “[It] embodies the most critical element within the food industry, trust; the trust our customers establish with their consumers and the trust our customers have in our software to increase transparency and mitigate brand risk in their supply chains.”

Essential Tools — Enhanced

More than just a facelift, our evolution is rooted in decades of data expertise and a comprehensive suite of quality and compliance tools from ESHA Research & FoodLogiQ. This foundation has paved the way for our ambitious reinvention as the food industry's most trusted partner.

Trustwell Connect is the culmination of this legacy, a platform that not only retains the industry standard but also introduces innovative capabilities. It's a testament to our enduring heritage as industry forerunners, with a combined history spanning over fifty years, during which Genesis and FoodLogiQ have provided key data, insights, and tools to our valued partners. Now, we're building it all better.

[Get the eBook]: Food Safety & Traceability Software Buyer’s Guide

Re-launch of Genesis Foods

In May 2023, Trustwell unveiled the advanced Genesis Foods, evolving from our benchmark Genesis R&D Foods Classic software. This next-generation product promises to transform recipe formulation and nutrition labeling. Notable features introduced in 2023 include:

Recipe and Ingredient Versioning

Genesis Foods' Versioning streamlines recipe management, ensuring FDA compliance with locked-in approved versions and editable drafts for updates. Maintain accurate, traceable records with ease, and keep your development process organized and compliant.

Ingredient Statement Builder

Genesis Foods introduces a powerful Ingredient Statement Builder, designed for flexibility in food labeling. Users can expand detailed lists, merge similar ingredients, and simplify entries to suit diverse product needs. This tool adapts to regulatory requirements and enhances transparency from production to point of sale, optimizing ingredient representation for food businesses.

Localization

Genesis Foods is breaking down language barriers and catering to our diverse clientele with its latest update. We've gone multilingual, offering full localization in English, French, and German, ensuring that you can navigate our application in the language that suits you best.

FoodLogiQ Releases Highlights

Throughout 2023, our quarterly FoodLogiQ updates brought expanded integrations, reporting enhancements, and usability advancements, significantly elevating the platform’s capabilities. Core functionality and feature improvements include:

Improved Processes: Much Less Manual, Way More Efficient

2023 opened a whole new world of widgets for FoodLogiQ customers, many of which eliminated manual data entry or made it easier to do when it is necessary. Others expanded configuration and customization capabilities to meet customer needs. 

Supplier management got easier with an Open To-Dos widget for onboarding updates, task organization, and outstanding requirements delivered at your fingertips. Document management did, too with the addition of simplified, flexible ad hoc document requests.

Traceability Features for FSMA 204 (and Beyond)

With FSMA 204 compliance required by January 2026, we focused on traceability enhancements, aligning with GS1 Global Data Models and FSMA 204 standards. Beyond gathering insights, our new features like Traceability Data Accuracy Warnings and Recall widgets empower proactive measures, complemented by significant upgrades to our Recall capabilities, ensuring prompt and precise actions during critical situations.

A Raised Bar for Data Collection, Visualization, and Analysis

In 2023, we raised the bar for supply chain data collection, visualization, and analysis. Enhancements in FoodLogiQ Recall linked events and incidents seamlessly, while the FoodLogiQ Dashboard provided intuitive, real-time views and supplier assessment statuses. With comprehensive data collection, we enabled deeper analyses and clearer representations, all while honing our data handling—from customizable features to advanced monitoring tools—reaffirming our dedication to pioneering food safety innovations alongside our customers.

Learning & Thought Leadership in 2023

That commitment will extend beyond 2023, but it was certainly a ‘north star’ for Trustwell’s learning and content development strategy last year. The year began with the announcement of significant changes to the regulatory landscape and operators within it and even more on the horizon, including, of course, FSMA 204 compliance. We saw these changes as an opportunity to provide learning and leadership resources to food industry leaders looking to prepare for and rise to these challenges.

Resources for Regulatory Change

We began by expanding our professional services offerings in March to include support for a regulatory landscape that’s shifting rapidly and showing no signs of slowing down. Now, in addition to the food, nutrition, and ingredient labeling consultation services we offer, leaders can partner with Trustwell to better understand traceability, assess their current infrastructure, and adopt new strategies for compliance in time. 

The formation of our FSMA 204 Workgroup in August allowed us to redouble our commitment to implementing customer feedback. Open to all of our customers, these quarterly sessions are hosted by industry vet and Trustwell’s VP of Supply Chain Strategy & Insights, Julie McGill. This community learning space connects our customers directly to industry experts and key stakeholders within Trustwell to ask questions, share their perspectives, and access a growing library of supplemental resources and materials to support traceability initiatives within their organizations.

We’ve also worked to build, maintain, and expand a growing library of readiness resources for all industry players — whether they partner with Trustwell or not. Anyone can turn — and return to — for expertise and insight on the road to January 2026, including free FSMA consult calls and a course catalog of on-demand regulatory seminars.

Trusted Thought Leadership 

Throughout 2023, Trustwell bolstered its reputation for providing industry-leading expertise with the publication of seminal resources, participation in global conferences, and episodes of our new “bite-sized” podcast, Food Tech Talk: Supply Chain Insights From Fark to Fork. Throughout the year, we:

• Released our 2023 State of Food Traceability Report in March, which included data from a survey of nearly 200 food industry professionals, their insights, and strategies for compliance
• Attended the FDA’s public meeting in September, Modernizing FDA Recalls Listening Session, which featured comments from Katy Jones and Julie McGill.
• Launched a new podcast, Food Tech Talk with Trustwell, featuring short, impactful conversations with guest leaders from across the food and supplement industry.
• Attended IFT First, the annual conference hosted by The Institute of Food Technologists, where Julie McGill led two sessions: How to Prepare for FSMA 204 Compliance: Perspectives for Small and Medium-Sized Firms and What Do All Professions Within the Science of Food Need to Know About Traceability and FSMA Section 204 Implications?
• Served up impactful industry insights during our inaugural Trustwell reCONNECT 2023 with conversations from industry leaders like Dr. Darin Detwiler, LP.D., Bill Marler, Tia Glave, Jill Stuber, Stephen Statler, Jeanne Duckett, Sara Bratager, and more!
• Partnered with Specright offering Genesis customers leveraging the Specright platform the ability to seamlessly transfer ingredient and recipe data between systems and streamline updates to ingredient specifications.
• Celebrated Katy Jones’ inclusion in GS1’s Retail and Grocery Initiative Executive Leadership Committee.

The Year Ahead: What’s in Store for 2024

2023 was a big year — for the food industry, for Trustwell, and for the customers we serve. That just leaves one question: what’s in store for 2024?

We have a lot to look forward to. Between improving our products, launching new services, and offering free educational resources, we’re already rolling our sleeves up and getting ready to roll out even more of what our partners have come to rely on for a safe, streamlined, and successful recipe-to-recall process.

We’re kicking things off with the first webinar of the year, Navigating the Future of Food Safety: FSMA 204 Insights and the FDA’s Roadmap for 2024, featuring Angela Fields of the FDA. Sign up now to listen in on her conversation with our own Julie McGill, which is sure to be frank and full of the information you need to jump-start traceability initiatives in 2024.

And of course, we’re bringing reCONNECT back for another year in 2024. Don’t want to miss any of it? We don’t blame you! Stay in the know when you subscribe to updates from Trustwell, or follow us on LinkedIn to be a part of the conversation in 2024.