Traceability is the ability to follow a food lot through the supply chain, from its source to its buyer. Most food law asks for one step back and one step forward. Tracing all the way to the farm is a stricter level that most Indian commodity supply chains do not reach by default.
In the EU, the general traceability duty comes from Regulation (EC) No 178/2002. It requires food businesses to identify who supplied them and who they supplied.
Why farm-level tracing is hard in India
Many crops are grown by small farmers and sold at APMC auctions through commission agents. A processor may buy dozens of small lots in a day and blend them. Once blended, a single farm can no longer be named. How these markets work is explained in what an APMC market is.
That is normal for conventional spices and seeds. It is one reason residue control relies so much on testing the finished lot.
What standard traceability looks like
- A finished lot number on every bag.
- Production records linking that lot to the raw material lots used.
- Purchase records linking raw material lots to the market, trader or farmer group they came from.
- Dispatch records linking finished lots to invoices and containers.
- A mock recall that the plant can run within a few hours.
When you need to reach the farm
Farm-level tracing is needed for organic products, some sustainability programmes, and buyers who want to control residues at source. It usually works through a contract farming or farmer group programme.
- Named farmers or farmer groups, with field locations.
- Records of seed, inputs and sprays used on each field.
- Separate collection and storage of each group's crop.
- Lot identity kept through cleaning and processing, without blending in market stock.
- Testing of incoming lots before they are mixed.
How to test and enforce traceability
Pick a finished lot number from a past shipment or from the warehouse. Ask the plant to show, from records, the raw material lots, purchase invoices and process records behind it. Time how long it takes. A plant with real systems answers quickly and the figures add up.
Lot numbering is the base of all of this. See how a lot number should be marked on bags.
Write traceability into the contract and spec. Require a lot number on every bag, records linking it to raw material, and the right to run a trace test during an audit. For farm-level programmes, require that lots are kept separate and that no market stock is blended in without approval. Ask for the records to be kept for at least the shelf life of your products.
Where we come in
We run trace tests during audits and check that each shipped lot carries a number linked to production and raw material records. Where you need farm-level origin, we look for processors already running farmer programmes. Ask for a free sourcing review.