Traceability in the food industry: why it is crucial and how to approach it
A product recall is every food company's nightmare: not only because of the direct costs, but also because of the question of how quickly and precisely you can demonstrate which products, raw materials and customers are involved. Traceability is therefore not simply an administrative obligation, but the backbone of any properly functioning food safety system.
Pascal Brysse
What exactly does traceability mean?
Traceability is the ability to follow and reconstruct the path of a raw material, ingredient or finished product through the entire chain: from supplier, through production and packaging, to the customer. This includes both tracing (backwards: where does a raw material come from) and tracking (forwards: where has a product gone).
The legal framework
Within the EU, Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 (the General Food Law) establishes the so-called "one-step-back, one-step-forward" principle: every link in the chain must know from whom it received raw materials and to whom it supplied products. Food safety standards such as BRCGS, IFS and FSSC 22000 go even further and expect companies to periodically test their traceability system through a mock recall or traceability exercise.
Traceability in practice
A robust traceability system rests on a few practical pillars:
- Correct batch coding on raw materials, semi-finished goods and finished products, consistent throughout the entire production process.
- Complete and up-to-date records of receipt, production, packaging and dispatch, linked to the correct batch numbers.
- Periodic traceability exercises (mock recalls), at least annually, in which you test both the speed and the completeness of the reconstruction. Depending on the standard, customer requirement or audit context, a target time is often applied, for example 4 hours for BRCGS.
- Clear procedures for recall and withdrawal, with pre-defined roles and communication channels.
- Digital support where possible, to reduce manual searching and error-proneness.
The link with risk analysis and labelling
Traceability does not stand apart from the rest of your food safety system. A thorough risk analysis identifies precisely the critical points in your process where good batch registration makes the most difference. Your labelling and specification management also play a role: correct, up-to-date specifications and labels ensure that a recalled product can be effectively and quickly identified, down to the level of the correct batch.
Traceability during audits
For almost every external audit, whether a certification audit for BRCGS, IFS or FSSC 22000, or an inspection by the FASFC, a traceability exercise is standard practice. Auditors typically ask you to reconstruct a random batch on the spot within a limited timeframe.
Regular internal exercises through our audits & inspections ensure you don't need to lose sleep over this when the auditor is at the door.
How AMNorman helps you with this
AMNorman supports food companies in setting up, testing and improving their traceability system, from batch coding to mock recall. This forms part of our broader services in risk analysis and audits & inspections, and aligns with projects for standards implementation such as BRCGS, IFS and FSSC 22000.
