Globally-recognised unique identification of products, assets, locations and more
Accurate and automatic capture of data
Efficient sharing of information from trusted and authentic sources
GS1 Standards help streamline business processes
GS1 Canada has a unique community management role that allows collaboration and partnership with industry in a variety of work groups, technical groups, task groups and focus groups — collectively called Work Groups.
The Work Groups are made up of subject matter experts from businesses of all sizes operating in Canada. This collaborative forum ensures GS1 Canada is developing standards, guidelines and non-proprietary business solutions that meet the requirements of the Canadian industry. The three main focuses are:
Each Work Group defines its scope and objectives through a Mandate or Call to Action.
For all questions, including registration, please contact community.group@gs1ca.org.
Develop and maintain a leading practice for the use of data synchronization attributes and the publication of Implementation Guidelines for industry use and reference.
Development of standardized business requirements within the following categories: grocery, dairy, frozen, fresh foods, hardlines, general merchandise, seafood, poultry, chemical, beverages, alcohol, health and beauty, pharmaceutical, publishing, tobacco, garden, and office supplies.
Facilitate efficiencies and interoperability between trading partners, meet government regulations and protect the Canadian public through a pan-Canadian strategy. The Work Group will look to achieve this through end-to-end traceability between trading partners and a national strategy for the development and maintenance of a safe and effective cannabis supply chain.
Directed by the needs of the cannabis community, Work Group participants will be asked to prioritize the following four business drivers to work toward a pan-Canadian strategy.
Securing community alignment on global supply chain standards for cannabis products distributed and sold in Canada. This will be done by collecting, defining and evaluating business needs specific to the cannabis supply chain. These needs will be used to determine the potential impact of current and emerging regulations on data capturing requirements.
There is a request from industry to understand the DRS regulation needs across all provinces and to standardize non-competitive content to support industry in meeting regulation compliance.
This new Deposit Return Schemes Task Group’s (Task Group) objective is to:
The goal is to provide industry trading partners including brands, retailers, food service distributors, manufacturers with common tools that will increase better information sharing on deposit returns.
In 2021, the Grocery Board agreed sustainability to be a key topic for the board.
In 2022, GS1 Canada undertook industry discovery program to understand needs and priorities. Further investigation highlighted the need for standardization in DRS, single use plastics and EPR.
The objective of the Task Group is to bring brands, manufacturers, designated management bodies (by province) and Data Recipients of all sizes, together to gain an understanding of the current data challenges the collective community face when it comes to implementing DRS across all the provinces.
In addition, the Task Group will identify opportunities to increase value for all community members by extending ECCnet functionality. The Work Group will support achieving the following objectives:
Based on the priorities identified by the Grocery and the Foodservice Boards, the Digital Commerce Executive Forum will enable the evolution of our industry-directed solutions by:
The Task Group will focus on two Health Canada’s Regulatory Operations and Enforcement Branch-led initiatives, drug shortage reporting and drug establishment licences to determine how to use both the GS1 Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs/Barcode #), and Global Location Numbers with reporting requirements.
There is great value for the multiple stakeholders in the pharmaceutical supply chain to have these two Health Canada initiatives aligned with the GS1 standards. The Task Group shall focus on:
Advance the Clinically Integrated Supply Chain Roadmap as such that every patient record incorporates the common global supply chain language (standards) and accurate data that establish the foundation of patient safety; best possible patient outcomes; robust analytics (clinical outcomes, value-based procurement); safe, effective product recall management; cost savings; and operational efficiencies.
Review industry's business requirements impacted by nutrition regulations for incorporation into GS1 Canada's tools, namely ECCnet Registry and ECCnet Item Certification.
Develop standardized business requirements for all food products within the grocery and foodservice industries.
This is achieved by:
Establish and incorporate into ECCnet Registry and ECCnet Item Certification the nutritional business requirements for data synchronization, then publish Implementation Guidelines for industry use and reference.
Continue the development of standardized business requirements for nutrition within the grocery and foodservice industries through:
The Personal Protective Equipment and Industrial Cleaning Supplies (PPE/ICS) Work Group will identify the global supply chain standards required to support the procurement and traceability capabilities within these categories, for both business to business (B2B) and business to business to consumer (B2B2C) purposes, across all channels of use, i.e., grocery, foodservice, general merchandise and hardlines, pharmacy and healthcare.
Through GS1 Canada’s community management process, the Work Group will identify the overall sector requirements for a seamless and transparent PPE and ICS supply chain, including barcode requirements and data requirements to be available in GS1 Canada’s National Product Registry (ECCnet).
Work Group participants will collaborate to develop PPE and ICS standards to enable trading partner data synchronization and over-arching interoperability; and agree on a common framework for:
The Work Group will leverage and expand upon existing global standards and registries that currently include PPE and ICS as well as the collective knowledge and experience of subject matter experts. Additionally, the Work Group will prioritize the business issues and collaborate over time to develop sector alignment.
Working to enhance patient safety and system-wide efficiencies in pharmacy through standards-based leading practices and peer-to-peer sharing for the pharmacy community. This committee looks to accurately identify medications at each stage of the pharmacy supply chain through automation and global standards adoption for positive change.
Develop and maintain standards implementation requirements specific to the Canadian pharmacy community. Our goal is to achieve 100% data integrity and category completion, and to develop and maintain Canadian pharmaceutical implementation guidelines for clinical and supply chain use cases as identified by the Healthcare Pharmacy Board and pharmacy community.
The work group operates within the following context:
Single use plastics requires immediate attention due new legislation becoming effective January 2023.
The Task Group has been established to:
The mission is to provide industry trading partners including brands, such as retailers, food service distributors, manufacturers with common tools that will increase better standardization and information sharing for single use plastics.
The objective is to bring together food service operators, brands, manufacturers, and Data Recipients of all sizes, together to gain an understanding of the current challenges the collective community face when it comes to complying to the new single use plastics regulation and how GS1 standards and solutions can support.
There are significant efforts taking place already in Canada to prepare industry to be compliant with the legislation that has already passed and the legislation we expect to come. From an implementation perspective, data standards and sharing capabilities will ensure a consistent foundation that creates an even playing field whilst ensuring the industry achieves regulatory compliance in an efficient and transparent manner. The development of non-competitive data standards will be useful across any number of ongoing areas of work including transition to EPR (extended producer responsibility), expanding DRS (deposit returns scheme), single use plastics and the national plastics registry.
The goal of this Forum is to drive better environmental outcomes for organizations by using data to underpin the circularity transition, Environmental Social and Governance and sustainability goals. The Forum will also:
GS1 Canada has a unique community management role that allows collaboration and partnership with industry in a variety of work groups, technical groups, task groups and focus groups (Work Groups).
The work groups are made up of subject matter experts from businesses of all sizes operating in Canada. They provide a collaborative forum and ensure GS1 Canada is developing standards, guidelines and non-proprietary business solutions that meet the requirements of the Canadian industry.
Development and publishing of implementation guidelines and best practices using GS1 global standards for local data synchronization and direct electronic communication.
Discussions on community submissions and/or Board directives regarding shared technical and business issues and to solve issues through the use of global standards.
Identifications of requirements for non-competitive issues by offering non-proprietary ECCnet Industry Managed Solutions.