In an industry constantly navigating compliance risks and complex procurement demands, iTradeNetwork says it’s leveraging its more than 25 years of supply chain expertise to help grower-packer-shippers, retailers, foodservice operators and distributors to simplify the supply chain, reduce food waste, optimize inventory levels, mitigate compliance risk and increase profitably.
“We provide end-to-end supply chain management solutions, whether it’s an ordering platform, inventory, forecasting or traceability as well as freight transportation services … and we’re supporting our partners through that journey of sourcing and buying very closely,” says Lamia Barrington, head of customer success at iTradeNetwork. “On my team, we focus on the outcomes, so we get really deep in the relationship — understanding their business, understanding their challenges, and where iTradeNetwork can plug in to help solve some of those problems.”
Through its extensive network, iTradeNetwork has an expansive and diverse volume of supply chain data — including purchase orders, inventory and forecasting data — garnered from its relationships across the distribution, retail and supplier sectors, says Barrington.
However, a major challenge currently facing the produce industry is the fragmentation of data scattered across multiple different systems. To address this roadblock, the company looks at how to leverage artificial intelligence to efficiently consolidate these disparate data sources into a single, unified system of record, she says.
Ultimately, the goal is to maximize the unique value of iTradeNetwork’s vast dataset by collaborating closely with stakeholders across the supply chain, says Barrington. By resolving these integration challenges, the company aims to support its partners in gathering critical supply chain information into one centralized location. This centralization seamlessly allows businesses to analyze their data and efficiently extract the actionable insights they need.
FSMA 204 Compliance
With a July 2028 compliance deadline on the Food Safety Modernization Act regulations, Barrington says iTradeNetwork offers a robust solution platform that captures Key Data Elements (KDEs) natively across critical tracking events within the supply chain, ensuring compliance is seamless and integrated.
“With FSMA 204 compliance, we’ve been front and center in supporting the regulation, and then making sure that our supplier community is set up to be able to send that data to the retailers or distributors. But it’s not only sending the data; it’s also making sure that the data is compliant,” says Barrington. This includes ensuring that all the different KDEs are there, and that they’re accurate, she says.
“We play a big role in that and in developing the reporting dashboard —being that repository of the data to make sure that it gets to the places it needs to get to,” says Barrington.
Through advanced data integration, the company’s Order Management System connects operational data with critical compliance information. Whether integrating warehouse systems or leveraging existing data within the platform, the tool simplifies the inclusion of KDEs and supports automatic data flow into the OMS for straightforward transmission to buyers.
For retailers, iTradeNetwork gathers detailed data on when each product was harvested. Its system then allows retailers to make informed decisions beyond the traditional first-in, first-out inventory approach.
And for grower-packer-shippers, the company offers a suite of adaptable solutions that can be customized to fit different harvesting processes, whether it’s field packing, line packing, or another workflow. iTradeNetwork says its technology integrates into existing operations, allowing for the capture and tracking of origination data.
Barrington says she sees retailers actively investing in FSMA 204 compliance and advance shipping notices (ASN).
“This is something that Walmart has been doing for years,” she says. “It’s not really a new thing but the regulation is requiring a bit more than what retailers have historically required from their suppliers. What I tell our supplier community is they really need to listen to what their customers are requesting of them.”
Barrington says some of the biggest suppliers have been complying for some time and when the compliance deadline was extended 30 months from January 2026 to July 2028, they stayed the course.
“They’re already set up. They’ve invested in it. So, when the FSMA 204 compliance deadline was moved to July 2028, a lot of our customers didn’t stop. They already had the team invested, and they were not going to slow down. And we’re seeing the same outcome on the retailer side as well.”
She says most of iTradeNetwork’s retail customers have already published a date for making sure their supplies are compliant.
“Whether it’s connected to FSMA or not, they are still driving forward with making sure that they will be receiving the compliance data, and it’s what we’re encouraging our retailers to do.”
Accelerating the compliance journey is the company’s FSMA 204 Head Start Program. The company says the pre-built framework leverages its more than 12 years of specialized expertise in traceability to offer rapid, scalable solutions that ensure businesses can efficiently meet strict regulatory requirements and advance their compliance goals.
“I’m very passionate about this topic,” says Barrington. “I’ve been both supporting our supplier community as well as our retailers in it, but I’d say it is really driven by the retailers at this point. That’s who the suppliers are relying on to tell them if they should be ready or not.”
A potential added benefit for suppliers that achieve early compliance is that they may become preferred vendors in the eyes of retail buyers.
“Retailers are definitely looking at who is compliant right now, who is sending those KDEs, and who’s not,” she says. “At the end of the day, they’re probably going to prefer somebody who’s already compliant over somebody who’s not, and so we’re working to make sure that we encourage suppliers to take the steps to get to that point.”
Leveraging Data
iTradeNetwork operates an integrated, interconnected supply chain platform that captures an extensive wealth of data across various workflows, says Barrington. By facilitating communication between retailers and suppliers, the platform naturally aggregates data on purchase orders, forecasting, inventory, traceability and freight. This depth of data integration positions the company as something closer to a data network than a traditional supply chain software vendor, built on connections across buyers, suppliers, and distributors in food and beverage.
The platform’s reach extends through diverse foodservice operations, capturing transactional data from restaurants, airports, hospitals and prisons. iTradeNetwork says it connects directly to the end systems of its partners, allowing data to flow seamlessly through their infrastructure even when transactions involve entities that are not direct customers. This widespread connectivity ensures comprehensive visibility across the entire ordering ecosystem, says Barrington.
In terms of scale, iTradeNetwork serves over 4,000 direct customers across the broader supply chain — including manufacturers, grower-shippers, protein and dairy providers, as well as major retailers and distributors in the U.S. and Canada, she says. Beyond this core customer base, the network expands to major foodservice operators like Compass, Sodexo, Aramark, and more.
While these operators and the company’s approximately 60,000 restaurant users leverage the platform for ordering, they represent an extensive indirect user base that further amplifies the company’s data network.
The Practical Value of AI
In October, iTradeNetwork CEO Amer Akhtar announced the company was building an AI-first company.
Barrington says the foundational work on security and privacy preceded this shift and know its AI focus centers around streamlining processes and freeing up time for its clients to focus on high-value work.
“There’s a lot of manual work that’s still happening on the complex side of buying and selling, and it’s all done through our system, so we know it very well,” says Barrington.
As a result, iTradeNetwork has been developing agents to streamline that process.
“The impact that has on the customer side is that they’re now getting more time to focus on other things,” she says. “They’re not trying to replace their teams by using AI or using agents, but it’s more of how can we streamline what they’re doing and where they’re spending hours during the day back and forth between buyer and supplier to make sure that the order is not impacted, and the manual work is taken out, so they can focus on doing things that add more value.”
Barrington says another upside to embracing AI in the supply chain is that suppliers can get paid faster now.
“If there’s no issues and delays, orders are getting to the stores efficiently,” she says. “That’s been a major focus of ours: How can we leverage AI to support the challenges that our customers are having within this industry? We’ve been partnering with our customers to show them, here’s what we think would add value, but we also want to be part of that design. We want them to validate that we have the right idea that helps them with their day-to-day operations.
“When we look at our company, how our partnerships have developed and how integrated we are with our customers — and they’re not customers, we’re family — we bring them in, we want their feedback,” Barrington says. “We want them to be part of that design process to make sure that they’re going to adopt it and it’s going to help their operations.”
