Batch traceability for a small Irish food producer: what the auditor actually asks, and why the spreadsheet fails the question

Most small food producers in Ireland can trace a batch. Ask on a Tuesday afternoon and somebody will find the make sheet, the intake dockets, the dispatch book and the retailer order, and put the story together. It works. It just takes two people and most of an afternoon.

That is the problem an auditor is looking for.

What the audit actually asks

A BRCGS or retailer technical audit does not ask "can you trace this". It asks you to do it, now, in front of them, forwards and backwards, within a time limit. Typically:

• Backwards. Here is a finished product code and use by date. Show me every ingredient lot that went into it, the supplier intake records, and who made it.
• Forwards. Here is an ingredient lot number. Show me every batch it went into and every customer that received those batches, with quantities.
• Reconciled. The quantity in must roughly equal the quantity out plus waste. If 400 kg went in and 380 kg is accounted for, they want to know where the 20 kg went.

The clock usually runs for four hours on a full mock recall. Many retailers now expect it inside two.

Where the spreadsheet fails

The workbook is not wrong. It fails for three practical reasons:

1. The chain lives in several places. Intake is in one file, production in another, dispatch in the diary or the accounts package. Every join is a person remembering.
2. Variable weights. Cheese, meat, bakery and most fresh product does not come in fixed units. Batch weights, catch weights and split cases are recorded by hand and reconcile badly.
3. Retailer codes. The same product has a different code for each retailer, and a different label. The spreadsheet holds one of them.

Under time pressure, with an auditor watching, the person who knows the workbook is the only person who can do it. If they are on holiday the audit is at risk.

Does this need software?

Not always. The first fix is usually one intake record, one make sheet and one dispatch record that share a batch number, even on paper. That alone brings a recall drill down to under an hour.

Where a producer has grown past that, a purpose built system records the batch once, at the point the work happens, and the traceability report is simply a query. That is what we built for Cashel Farmhouse Cheesemakers: batch, order, dispatch and certificates in one place, with the traceability report produced in minutes rather than an afternoon.

Where to go next

• Software for food producers. What we look at first, and what we usually find.
• Keystone and Cashel Blue. The full case study.
• Or tell us how your traceability works today. One sentence is fine.