The primary purpose of a traceability system is to track a specific product, ingredient or material from and to any point in the supply chain. This can be from the point of origin through processing, packaging, distribution, and finally, product consumption. This is known as ‘farm to fork’ traceability in the food industry.

That said, traceability’s start and end points can vary from facility to facility. For instance, one facility might determine the start of traceability to be at goods-in when the first ingredients or materials were added to the very start of the production process. Meanwhile, another facility might determine traceability once the product leaves the factory or even the origin of the raw materials before they’re processed.