What is traceability and why is it vital in your kitchen?
With tspoonlab, traceability sets up a control that lets you track a productâs complete journey, from the moment it comes through your store door until it reaches the consumer. It is the "ID card" of your food. In hospitality, keeping this record can be a legal obligation for some types of business (food safety and HACCP â Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points); it is also the key tool for reacting immediately to any food alert. Traceability is a closed loop. To master it in your day to day, we have split this collection into 5 practical blocks that weâll go through step by step:
Traceability in purchases: how to record batches and expiry dates when you receive delivery notes.
Traceability in stores: batch control after inventories, transfers and waste.
Traceability in production: the process in which recipes and dishes automatically or manually recover the batch numbers of the raw materials used during the recipe costing, and get their own batch number as a processed item.
Traceability in sales: the record where the system definitively links and deducts the specific batch numbers associated with the dishes sold or the goods dispatched.
Reverse traceability (audit support): the feature with which tspoonlab helps you during a traceability audit. It acts as an emergency tool to trace any incident backwards from the sale to the customer.
Ways to work with traceability: Default mode or FEFO mode (First-Expired, First-Out)
When choosing how to work with traceability in tspoonlab, the platform lets you set the system up under two operating schemes: Default mode (automatic suggestion of the latest batch) or FEFO mode (control by expiry date).
Default traceability: the simple, quick, automatic way tspoonlab uses. In this mode the software suggests the batch number to use for each product in store movements and transformations into productions. By default, it selects the last batch purchased or produced, though you can always open the batch-selection screen and change it manually to any other available one. In this mode, batches are never deleted or removed from the history, so they are always available to consult and select.
FEFO-mode traceability: a much stricter, more detailed way of working. With FEFO mode active, the system requires you to indicate and select the batch number you are moving or consuming at all times. This lets you know exactly the available stock of each specific batch in your stores, productions or sales. Before deciding, ask yourself: do you need to know at all times which batch is used in each production and the available stock of each batch? If so, FEFO mode is recommended, as it allows thorough control of batches and their availability in the store.
đ Note: To enable strict FEFO mode on your account, contact our technical team by opening a request through the built-in Support Chat in the bottom-right corner of your screen.
Conclusion and access to the modules
Correctly implementing this loop guarantees full control over your establishmentâs food safety and optimises internal operational management.
We encourage you to read the different articles in this collection independently, according to the area of your operation you need to set up or refine.
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If you need further assistance, contact support by clicking the built-in Support Chat in the bottom-right corner of your screen.