Watermelon grower and shipper Leger & Son has expanded its traceability program to include the deployment of HarvestMark PTI from Redwood City, Calif.-based YottaMark, Inc. to comply with the Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) case label requirements.

The PTI calls for produce shippers to complete and share their Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) assignments with buyers by Sept. 30, 2009, and to apply PTI-compliant labels to cases by the third quarter of 2010.

“We delivered traceable watermelons using HarvestMark at a time when many in the industry thought that item-level traceability was not feasible,” said Greg Leger, owner of Cordele, Ga.-based Leger & Son. “Our customers were delighted with HarvestMark last season. This year, new industry requirements for case-level traceability are coming, and we selected HarvestMark PTI because the solution is simple to deploy, effective, and helps us meet the standard and our customers’ requirements. It just makes good sense.”

Leger & Son will deploy HarvestMark PTI to simplify the GTIN assignment process, and apply PTI-compliant labels to each watermelon bin. HarvestMark PTI systems will be used at each packinghouse to meet the labeling requirements and automatically capture key harvest and packing data. Traceability and product information will be available to buyers via the HarvestMark.com portal.

HarvestMark PTI works with a wide range of packing workflows to provide shippers the flexibility to print PTI-compliant case labels either on demand or in volume, at the packing line, in the field or at the cooler. The product includes tools developed by the HarvestMark team to simplify and speed the assignment of GTINs to each of the shipper’s product configurations, and to easily share this information with buyers.

In addition to commodity, quantity and GTIN and lot number, HarvestMark PTI-compliant labels also include a case-specific HarvestMark code, which can be queried on the Web or with a cell phone to get instant permissions-based data about the produce as well as immediate trace-back to the source. In addition to Leger & Son, shippers including Coosaw Farms, Grow Farms, Divine Flavor/Grupo Alta and Sun World International have also deployed HarvestMark PTI to comply with the industry initiative.