17 July 2018 – GS1 UK today announces that Unilever and Nestlé have become the first suppliers to sign commercial contracts for using productDNA and are now actively using the service to help launch their new products with Tesco and Ocado who have already started implementing productDNA within their businesses.

Both of these brands were part of the leading group of suppliers and retailers announced in 2017, committed to an industry charter for a common approach to improving the quality and consistency of product data management. productDNA is the result of the retail industry getting together to agree a common language for products, being created “for the industry, by the industry.” Key benefits of the new productDNA service for the UK grocery industry include:

• A common data model for all retailers using a set of agreed product attributes
• A simpler, faster product catalogue shared between suppliers and retailers
• Third party verification to improve the quality of product data

GS1 UK is managing productDNA on behalf of the industry, through the Retail Grocery Advisory Board, whose members represent almost 80% of the UK retail grocery market.

The product data is owned by suppliers, without any third-party commercial constraints, with all the data attributes follow rules established by GS1 global standards. The data model has been created by the industry members to support the introduction of new product lines. Further product data attributes to support e-commerce and helping shoppers make better informed decisions on the products they are buying will be added later in 2018.

Expressing how productDNA helps their customers and protect their brands, Richard Sadler, Customer Operations Director at Unilever commented: “ProductDNA provides a single platform for us to communicate our product information through to customers and, ultimately through to consumers. Doing this quickly, efficiently and once, we hope this will provide some benefits for Unilever and our consumers and customers alike.”

“The drive towards efficient end-to-end supply chains eradicating inefficiency and waste is of huge significance to us at Nestlé. productDNA is part of our strategy to improve efficiency and deliver better value to consumers and customers.” Added David Hix, Supply Chain Director, Nestlé UK.

Gary Lynch, CEO GS1 UK, added: “Our industry members have clearly understood that shoppers are increasingly looking for additional and better information about the products they are buying whilst at the same time suppliers want to ensure that their brands and products are well communicated in the market. We’re delighted that Nestlé and Unilever have helped create the productDNA service and will be the first to start using it to share the data about their wonderful products with retailers and shoppers alike”.

All retailers and suppliers are invited to register their interest from today at: www.gs1uk.org/productdna.

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Notes to editors

For further information or requests for interviews, please contact Tim Haidar: 020 7092 3584 / Tim.Haidar@gs1uk.org.

About GS1 UK

GS1 UK is a community of over 36,000 members working in retail, foodservice, healthcare and more. GS1 UK is one of 112 independent, not-for-profit GS1 organisations operating across 150 countries worldwide. GS1 UK helps everyone involved in making, moving and trading goods, automate and standardise their supply chain processes using the common language of GS1 global standards.

www.gs1uk.org