Batch tracking, best-before dates and FEFO: the basics every food seller needs

If you sell food or supplements, counting units is the easy part. The harder question is which batch sits on which shelf and which one has to leave the warehouse first because its date is closest. Get that wrong and you either ship something past its date or write off stock that could have gone out two weeks earlier.

This article looks at what EU food law actually expects from you and at how Omneya handles batch tracking and FEFO for food on an ordinary working day.

Four terms behind one workflow

A batch (some suppliers say lot) is one delivery of one product. It carries its own number and the supplier reference. In Omneya the number is created automatically at goods-in, or you type in the one your supplier printed on the carton.

The best-before date belongs to the batch, not to the product. Two pallets of the same oat drink can easily be four months apart.

FEFO means First Expired, First Out. The batch with the nearest date is picked first, even if it arrived after another one. That is the difference to FIFO, which goes by arrival date and works fine for screws. A longer explanation with examples is in What is FEFO?.

Traceability answers the question every recall starts with: where did this batch come from, and where did it go?

What the law asks for, and where it stops

Article 18 of the EU General Food Law, Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, requires food businesses to identify who supplied them and which businesses they supplied in turn. That information has to be available to the authorities on demand. In practice people call it "one step back, one step forward".

Private end customers are not part of that obligation. For an online shop it still pays to know them. If a batch is recalled, emailing the 37 people who actually bought it beats a notice on your homepage that nobody reads. How the rules work in detail is covered in Traceability in food retail.

The date on the pack is governed by the Food Information to Consumers Regulation, (EU) No 1169/2011. A best-before date is about quality, it marks how long the food keeps its specific properties when stored properly. Foods that are highly perishable from a microbiological point of view get a use-by date instead, and after that date they count as unsafe. Both regulations also continue in UK law as retained legislation. None of this is legal advice. If you are unsure which date your products need, your local food authority is the right place to ask.

How Omneya handles it

At goods-in your team records batch number and best-before date together with the quantity received, usually with a handheld scanner (a tablet or keyboard works too). Differences against the purchase order show up line by line, and the goods go straight to a storage location. From that moment every batch keeps its own stock figure.

When an order is picked, Omneya proposes the batch with the earliest date. Nobody has to compare labels on cartons. Where FIFO or a manual choice makes more sense for an item, you can switch. The batch number then appears on the delivery note and the invoice, and your customer sees it in their account.

Batches that have expired or are too close to their date to ship are blocked automatically and drop out of sale. You can also block a batch by hand, for example when a supplier calls about a labelling mistake.

Warnings while there is still time

Purchasing gets a warning before a batch runs out. The lead time is set per category, because 14 days means something different for fresh pasta than for honey. A report groups your stock by remaining shelf life (today, 30, 60 or 90 days), so on Monday morning you can see what needs to move this week. More on that in Managing best-before dates.

When a supplier recalls a batch

A recall usually arrives by phone or email with a single batch number. In Omneya you open that batch, and the recall workflow lists every affected order in one click, with the customers behind them and the quantity still on your shelves. Each movement of the batch is logged with time and user, so you can show who received what and when.

Without that, the same question means an afternoon with delivery notes and spreadsheets (longer if the batch was split across two locations).

Who needs this

Anyone who sells food, drinks, food supplements or pet food with a date on the label. Cosmetics and drugstore sellers often work with batch codes as well, and wine merchants want to know which vintage went to which customer. If you produce rather than resell, have a look at the page for regulated manufacturers.

Where to start

You do not have to convert your whole range in one go. Pick the twenty or so products where dates are tightest, record batch and best-before date with the next deliveries and let the rest follow once the routine sits. The modules involved are batch management and best-before date management; the complete picture for food retailers is on food inventory management.

We have been working with retailers since 2007. If you want to see it with your own products, open a 14-day test system. Plans are listed on the pricing page, and for questions about your range you can get in touch.

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