Some 34 top bananas in the produce business lined up this week behind a plan, a schedule, and a standard to establish a produce traceability solution that will likely see universal adoption:

Thirty-four companies from throughout the produce supply chain have endorsed a new plan developed by the Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI) to move the supply chain to a common standard for electronic produce traceability by the end of 2012.

That news lead comes from this lengthy report courtesy of Fresh Plaza. If you’re in the produce business, you’ll want to read the whole thing and see the list of the 34 supply chain leaders. If you’re not in the produce business but make, let’s say, medical devices or healthcare products, this news reinforces the growing sense worldwide among all businesses that a global product marking standard is needed and GS1 is being increasingly identified as the leading candidate. After all, a million companies are already using it.

Here, lastly, by the way, is what the produce professionals say about GTIN and why they believe it is the best direction to take:

Building on companies’ current internal traceability systems, and using the existing foundation provided by international standards from the GS1 organization, the initiative provides the capacity to achieve external traceability by standardizing the incorporation of two critical pieces of traceability information: a Global Trade Identification Number (GTIN), and a lot number. Whereas most information necessary for traceability is already captured during each company’s normal business processes (such as the ship to, deliver to, and purchase order number details recorded in shipping documents), the inclusion and tracking of the GTIN and lot number will bring the connectivity between companies and across the supply chain that is currently missing.