FSMA 204 Was Delayed — Why Food Manufacturers Should Still Start Traceability Work Now When the FDA announced a delay in enforcing the Food Traceability Rule (FSMA Section 204), many food manufacturers breathed a sigh of relief. For organizations that were struggling to prepare, the additional time seemed like an opportunity to move the project
Building Traceability Without Increasing Complexity Food manufacturing traceability is essential. Every product must be traceable from receiving through shipping to satisfy customer requirements, comply with FSMA recordkeeping rules, meet retailer expectations, and support rapid, accurate recalls. But for many plants, the challenge isn’t understanding why traceability matters — it’s figuring out how to improve it
ERP Integration for Manufacturing Operations ERP integration for manufacturing helps companies eliminate double entry, improve production visibility, and connect plant floor operations with real-time business data. Many manufacturers still rely on spreadsheets, paper records, or manual data entry to track production activity. While these methods may appear simple at first, they often create hidden operational
Why Manual Traceability Fails on the Plant Floor Food manufacturers operate under constant pressure. Regulations continue to tighten, customers expect full transparency, and margins leave little room for error. In this environment, traceability must stay fast, accurate, and reliable. However, many facilities still rely on manual traceability processes such as paper forms, whiteboards, and spreadsheets
Upgrading your food traceability systems is no longer just a “nice-to-have” it’s a business necessity. The good news? In many regions, government grants and funding programs can significantly reduce your investment. Even if you’ve never applied for a grant before, there may be programs in your area designed to support food safety, supply chain modernization,
It has been a little over a month since the COVID-19 pandemic hit North America’s shores.
Food manufacturers face a continuous uphill battle with pressures to make high quality and safe food at an affordable price. At the best of times, they’re facing fiscal pressures from the farmers and growers, meaning that they have to be at the best at all times if they want to be profitable. Add in the emerging modernization of food safety standards, and things are going from tough to tougher. Luckily, companies like Matrix and SafetyChain are working hard to make things easier, and especially so with our latest partnership agreement!
The average direct cost of a recall to a food manufacturing company is $10 million, and that doesn’t begin to quantify the indirect costs of damage to the brand, bad publicity, or lost sales.
