LIFETIME TRACEABILITY – GUARANTEED!
In a cattle industry first, Swiss tag manufacturer DATAMARS has this week announced it will be offering a Lifetime Retention Guaranteeon its National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) Triangular “Tough Tag\” from July 2011.
With news that a traceability system will become an integral part of any decision to re-open the Live Export trade, and ongoing scepticism on the long-term loss rates of NLIS Tags, this decision is aimed at putting certainty back into the cattle supply chain.
As a further sweetener to an industry in turmoil, for only $0.20c extra, all DATAMARS Triangular NLIS tags are to be supplied with a Large or Extra Large “RETENTION GUARANTEE\” matching management tag & button printed with the same code and serial number as the NLIS tag. Customers can choose whatever they like for the other two other printed lines (for example number sequence of your choice plus property name…). Simply mention that you want the retention guarantee when ordering over the phone with Chemvet or select the option when ordering online.
If an NLIS tag is lost, and the matching management tag remains in place, Datamars simply replaces the lost tag.
“The cattle industry is crying out for someone to be accountable for what they do. In the traceability business, I know Datamars design and manufacturing capability are second to none. We have run legitimate trials and we know the long-term results are outstanding. Getting cattle producers to actively request better products from their reseller however means we have to put our money where our mouth is\”, said Datamars Livestock Manager, Tim Scott.
The “Tough Tag\” is yet to have a substantiated retention complaint and over 5 years of official Australian trials across a spectrum of production systems has yielded negligible losses. Datamars is throwing down the gauntlet to other suppliers to improve their quality to help the NLIS become a true lifetime traceability system.
“Minimum orders are 100 tags and the Guarantee is only being offered with our triangular NLIS Tough Tags, the wound aeration aspect is the key to our low loss rates, so with the round tags, we wouldn’t feel safe offering this type of asurity across all regions of Australia,\” continued Mr. Scott.
Peter Elmes from Augathella was involved in the original tag trials that yielded no losses over almost 4 years while losing 100% of an opposition tag in the same cattle on the same country. “Datamars tags are by far the best for staying in”.