What a Lot Code Should Actually Tell You

Traceability has become a word that appears in every supplier presentation and means almost nothing in practice. A code printed on a carton is not traceability. Traceability is the ability to answer, within an hour, which orchard a specific pallet came from and what the lab said about it.

Our lot code has four segments. The first identifies the product and grade. The second is the farm registration number from our contracted supplier list. The third is the drying yard and the week of processing. The fourth is the laboratory report number.

That structure means a claim can be investigated without guesswork. If a customer reports an off-colour pack, we can pull the retained sample from the same lot, compare it against the sealed reference and check whether the deviation appeared before or after shipment.

It also has a quieter benefit. When farms know their number travels with the fruit all the way to a distributor in another country, the standard of what arrives at the drying yard changes. Accountability upstream is worth more than inspection downstream.