Understanding the GTF Approach

This section introduces the concepts, principles, and design decisions that underpin the GTF. It explains the rationale behind the architecture and the modular approach used to support interoperable traceability across industries.

A Modular Approach to Traceability

Supply chains differ significantly across commodities, industries, regulatory jurisdictions, and sustainability initiatives. Seafood, dairy, fresh produce, livestock, pharmaceuticals, consumer packaged goods, and manufactured products each have unique production practices, supply chain structures, regulatory obligations, and business requirements. Attempting to capture all of these differences within a single traceability standard would create an overly complex framework that would be difficult to understand, implement, and maintain.

However, many of the fundamental principles of digital traceability are universal. Regardless of the product being tracked, organizations must record products as they are created, moved, transformed, and aggregated throughout supply chains. They must identify products and locations consistently, exchange data using common formats, and preserve relationships between supply chain events.

The overarching framework is therefore designed using a modular architecture that separates universal traceability requirements (the GTF) from context-specific implementation guidance and specialized extensions.

This approach enables organizations to share a common technical foundation while allowing individual industries, regulatory programs, and other initiatives to address their unique requirements without fragmenting interoperability.

Design Principles

The architecture is guided by five fundamental principles.

Common Before Specialized

Requirements that are broadly applicable across supply chains should be defined once within the GTF and reused across all implementations. Specialized requirements should only be introduced where they provide additional value for a particular context.

Interpret Rather Than Duplicate

Different industries often perform similar business activities using different terminology or operational practices. Rather than redefining traceability requirements for each industry, this framework encourages Modules to interpret the GTF within the context of a specific commodity, sector, or initiative.

Extend Without Modifying

New capabilities should build upon the GTF rather than altering it. Specialized requirements are introduced through Modules, allowing the GTF to evolve while maintaining compatibility with existing implementations.

Maintain Interoperability

Every implementation should continue to share the same common language for recording and exchanging traceability information. Regardless of how many Modules are adopted, organizations should remain capable of exchanging the foundational traceability information defined by the GTF.

Support Incremental Adoption

Organizations should be able to implement the GTF first and adopt additional capabilities over time as business needs, regulatory requirements, or organizational maturity evolve.

The GTF

The GTF establishes the common foundation for interoperable digital traceability.

It defines the minimum set of requirements that are applicable across supply chains, including:

• GTF CTEs & KDEs
• Data modeling, format and exchange protocols

These requirements represent the common language through which organizations exchange traceability information.

The GTF intentionally avoids introducing commodity-specific terminology, regulatory requirements, certification criteria, or sustainability metrics unless they are broadly applicable across supply chains.

By limiting the GTF to universally applicable requirements, organizations implementing different Modules remain capable of exchanging traceability information using a common technical foundation.

Modules

While the GTF defines the common requirements for interoperable digital traceability, different industries often require guidance on how those requirements apply within their operational context or additional information to support specific business, regulatory, or sustainability objectives.

Modules build upon the GTF by serving one or both of the following functions:

• Contextualization — interpreting the GTF Requirements using terminology, examples, and implementation guidance that reflects the operational practices of a specific community.
• Extension — defining additional information that should be collected or exchanged to support a specific objective.

Modules build upon the GTF rather than replacing or modifying it. As a result, organizations implementing different modules remain capable of exchanging the common traceability information defined by the GTF.

A module may include:

• commodity- or sector-specific examples of Critical Tracking Events
• descriptions of supply chain roles and business processes
• guidance for applying GTF KDEs
• recommended vocabularies or classifications
• references to applicable regulations or industry guidance
• implementation recommendations
• additional CTEs or KDEs
• specialized business vocabularies

For example, a Produce Module may explain that a Commission event represents harvesting produce, while a Livestock Module may interpret the same Commission event as animal birth. Although the operational activities differ, both represent the creation of a new traceable product and therefore share the same underlying GTF requirement.

Another module may introduce additional Key Data Elements needed to support objectives such as regulatory reporting, environmental sustainability, certification programs, or social accountability. Because these additions build upon rather than modify the GTF, organizations that do not implement a particular module remain fully interoperable at the GTF level.

Modules provide flexibility without compromising interoperability, allowing the GTF to evolve while preserving a stable technical foundation.

How the Components Work Together

The architecture consists of two complementary components.

Together, these components create a flexible architecture that accommodates diverse industries, supply chains, and business needs while preserving interoperability through a common GTF foundation.

Organizations implementing different modules continue to exchange the common traceability information defined by the GTF, while implementing any additional information required by the modules relevant to their operations.

An Example Implementation

The flexibility of this approach is best illustrated through implementation.

A seafood organization may implement:

• the GTF
• a Wild-Capture Seafood Module
• an Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Module
• a Social Responsibility Module

Meanwhile, a dairy organization may implement:

• the GTF
• a Dairy Module
• an Animal Welfare Module
• a Greenhouse Gas Reporting Module

Although these organizations collect different information to support their specific business needs, both continue to exchange the common traceability information defined by the GTF.

This layered architecture allows the GTF to evolve over time while preserving a stable, interoperable foundation for digital traceability across industries.