Food traceability software for UK brands: trace any batch, back and forward

Retained Regulation (EC) 178/2002, Article 18, sets the legal baseline. Every food business must be able to identify:

• One step back: who supplied each food, ingredient or substance to you.
• One step forward: which businesses you supplied.

You must keep those records and hand them to the authorities on demand. People in the trade call this "one up, one down" traceability.

The Food Standards Agency's guidance on traceability, withdrawals and recalls goes further. It treats internal traceability (linking the ingredients that came in to the products that went out) as best practice rather than law. It also recommends keeping records for the product's shelf life plus 12 months, as a minimum.

So the law asks who sent you what and who you sent it to. Your retailers, and the standards they audit you against, ask for the bit in the middle.

Every unit of stock in Pesto belongs to a lot, and every lot has a batch code. Start from a finished lot and Pesto shows:

1. 1

   Step 1

   The production run

   that made it, including where you made it: your own site or a named co-packer, and at which location.

2. 2

   Step 2

   The material lots

   that went into that run, each with its own batch code, received date and use-by.

3. 3

   Step 3

   The suppliers

   who sent each material lot.

If you buy in finished goods, the lot records its supplier, so one step back sits on the lot itself. If you build kits or gift packs, Pesto builds each one from specific component lots.

1. Step 1

   Start the clock

   Pick a lot at random, or ask your auditor to pick one. Note the time.

2. Step 2

   Trace backward

   Open the finished lot. Pesto shows the production run, the material lots used and their suppliers. If your test starts from an ingredient, start from that material lot instead.

3. Step 3

   Trace forward

   From the finished lot, Pesto lists every order that took stock from it and every customer who received it.

4. Step 4

   Check the quantities

   Compare what the production run made with what you dispatched, what you adjusted and what's still in stock. The lot ledger shows every movement.

5. Step 5

   Export the evidence

   Download the lot ledger as CSV and attach it to your traceability test record.

6. Step 6

   Stop the clock and review

   Record how long the trace took against your target (four hours for BRCGS). Note any gap, such as a lot booked in without a batch code, and fix the process behind it.

Most of that is clicking, not searching. The hard part used to be finding the records. Now it's reading them.