Members of the initiative will begin by developing a strategy to consolidate and standardise core information on demand side new line forms in the grocery and food service sectors. The group has also set a target for at least two retailers to have adopted the strategy framework by the end of 2008. "The GS1 UK Data Quality initiative has a significant role to play within our current programme of improving the ease with which we can collaborate with our supplier base. Timely and accurate data is fundamental to improving the process of successful business-to-business collaboration," says John Hall, B2B manager at Sainsbury's and co-chair of the Data Quality initiative.

“As a supplier we are looking to consolidate both formats and standards for product information as sharing information any number of ways is time consuming and detrimental to data quality,” says Nick Richmond, activity portfolio manager at Britvic and co-chair of the Data Quality initiative. “A consistent approach to sharing data promotes brand integrity and our consumer’s peace of mind alongside efficiency in the supply chain.”