PREVRA Food Traceability Log: Connect Every Ingredient to Every Dish You Serve
A structured traceability log linking incoming ingredients to finished products. Required under Article 18 of EC 178/2002 — know what came in, what went out, and where it all connects.
Why traceability is a legal requirement, not optional
Article 18 of EC Regulation 178/2002 requires all UK food businesses to maintain traceability records — one step back to your supplier, one step forward to your customer. This is not HACCP guidance; it is law. An EHO who cannot trace an ingredient from receipt to plate during an inspection will issue a non-compliance notice.
Counter-intuitive fact: traceability is not just for recalls. It is your primary defence against food fraud. If your supplier substituted a cheaper allergen-containing ingredient without disclosure, your traceability records are the only way to identify which menu items are affected before a customer has a reaction.
Using this traceability log for end-to-end food chain visibility
For each ingredient batch received, record the supplier, product description, batch or lot number, quantity, receipt date, use-by or best-before date, and which production batches or menu items it was used in. Cross-reference with your delivery log for the inspection data and your production sheets for the usage record.
Maintain this as a live document — traceability that is reconstructed retrospectively after a problem is already a compliance failure. Digital SFBB traceability logs automate the links between deliveries, production, and dispatch, giving you real-time visibility and one-click recall reports that meet FSA expectations for speed and accuracy.
Traceability gaps that fail EHO inspections
Bulk ingredient blind spots. Flour, oil, sugar — businesses often decant these into unlabelled containers and discard the original packaging with the batch code. Without the batch code, you have broken the traceability chain. Label every container with the original batch information.
Menu item linkage missing. Knowing you received batch 472 of chicken breast is useless if you cannot identify which menu items used it and on which dates. Your traceability log must connect ingredients to finished products. See our Ingredient Traceability Log for detailed single-ingredient tracking.
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