Food safety incidents require instant response to protect consumer safety and business outcomes. In the event of a recall or outbreak, your team must be able to identify contaminated products, trace their origin, and limit exposure — as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the risk to consumer health, regulatory compliance, and your brand reputation only grows. That’s why a fast, flexible traceability system is non-negotiable.
But even with the best intentions of improving traceability throughout your supply chain, you may have obstacles working against you. Roadblocks like outdated tools, siloed data, and limited supply chain visibility can slow your progress, delaying both implementation and response.
In this guide, we break down the most common bottlenecks holding manufacturers back from effective traceability and how your team can overcome them with modern implementation strategies — fast.
Between a changing regulatory landscape, increasingly complex global supply chains, and shrinking government resources, traceability is more important than ever. It’s part of your operation’s defense against contamination (and key to containing it when there’s a food safety breach). But your food traceability measures start long before an incident occurs, with consistent, well-documented protocols across your supply chain. Your team must understand the importance of traceability, as well as their role in making it work.
Efficient food traceability isn't just a lofty goal; it's a requirement for persons who manufacture, process, pack, or hold foods included on the Food Traceability List (FTL) under the latest rule of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), FSMA 204. Under this new regulation, food manufacturers are required to provide more comprehensive traceability recordkeeping for foods on the FTL.
Despite the FDA’s proposed extension of the rule’s compliance date, time is still of the essence. More thorough traceability protocols require significant time and resources to implement and adopt, so manufacturers don’t have the luxury of procrastinating. If you want to ensure your operations are compliant by July 20, 2028, the time to act is now.
Food traceability enables manufacturers to pinpoint root causes and halt production once contamination or food safety incidents have been detected. This is essential for maintaining food safety throughout the supply chain, preventing food fraud, and better identifying potential abnormalities or intentional adulteration that could put your business at risk.
In addition to reducing risk, strong traceability practices signal to regulators, supply chain partners, and consumers that your operation is committed to food safety and protecting public health.
An agile traceability system is your first line of defense in a food safety crisis. Your team must be able to:
Without this swift response, your operation risks the consequences of delayed action — everything from regulatory penalties to threats to consumer health.
The more complex your supply chain, the greater your food safety risk. A lack of visibility makes it difficult to spot issues early on; on the other hand, strong traceability protocols are crucial for identifying potential variations in shipments and protecting your operation from costly incidents (sometimes even before they reach production).
With the right traceability protocols, facilities can strengthen control over their supply chains and address potential food safety concerns before they escalate.
But even if you and your team are fully aware of the increasing necessity of better food traceability protocols, legacy systems, data silos, and poor visibility could be standing in your way. Let’s look at some strategies to speed up your progress along the road to food traceability compliance.
By making a few proactive changes to your operations, you can circumvent common issues and drive rapid food traceability protocols.
Legacy recordkeeping practices like siloed Excel spreadsheets or manual paper processes simply won’t cut it for rapid compliance with updated traceability requirements.
Standardizing your food traceability documentation not only allows your team to operate more efficiently, but also provides a more secure way to keep track of your traceability records. But how can you standardize records when your traceability system relies on disparate recordkeeping measures that can’t integrate?
Investing in digital recordkeeping is essential to making your traceability protocols more agile and consistent. Solutions like dedicated food traceability software offer automated data capture and record organization that can remove cumbersome roadblocks to rapid response and compliance.
If your internal teams don’t collaborate effectively, data silos can lead to confusion, miscommunication, and slip-ups like inaccurate or duplicate records, which could slow down response during a food safety incident.
Your team needs two things to remedy data silos: 1) opportunities for collaboration, and 2) the motivation to update their existing processes. Providing the first is relatively easy (at least conceptually); investing in centralized data storage tools can help teams better share key product data across departments. However, managing this change also requires a clear explanation of the benefits of collaboration and top-down buy-in of its value. Your teams might not automatically be on board with changing their processes. To minimize resistance, prepare a comprehensive training plan detailing:
A lack of visibility into your supply chain is another key deterrent to streamlined traceability processes. If your suppliers haven’t adapted to modern traceability methods, it could slow down the rest of your operation.
There are a variety of technological innovations in the food traceability space helping manufacturers maintain food safety standards. These solutions are designed to increase visibility, streamline common traceability processes, and better connect you to your supply chain data:
But unless your operation is producing products from farm to fork, it’s not enough to invest in these technologies alone. Review your current supplier and vendor partnerships to determine whether they are currently or in the process of implementing these kinds of solutions. If they aren’t (and don’t plan to in the foreseeable future), it may be worth exploring new partnerships that can provide better transparency.
The complexity of your supply chain directly correlates to how quickly your team can trace the origin of a food safety incident. Navigating this complexity with outdated traceability techniques could delay response in a crisis.
Supply chains are only becoming more complex, not less, so avoiding them is virtually impossible. Maintaining food traceability compliance in today’s complicated food safety landscape requires data visibility, interdepartmental coordination, and thorough education and training.
Pairing with a third-party expert, whether it be for training or hands-on assistance, can enhance your traceability strategy by identifying gaps in knowledge or operational protocols and accelerating the implementation of practical solutions. Experts like those at AIB International can help your team move quickly, adapt to new guidelines, and navigate challenges.
A food safety crisis is no time to find out if your traceability practices are up to par. Whether you’re adapting to new regulatory requirements or responding to a sudden recall, your team must be able to act fast.
An effective traceability system is both compliant and agile, which requires transparent recordkeeping, interdepartmental collaboration, and supply chain visibility. If you’re not sure what piece of the puzzle you might be missing, now’s the time to find out.
With AIB International’s Assign an Expert service, you can lean on third-party support to help you identify where your operation might be hitting a wall — and how to break it down. Request a consultation to accelerate your compliance efforts and crisis-readiness today.