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A mock recall, run inside Business Central
- 1
Receive with the supplier's lot
The receiving clerk records the vendor lot number and expiration date on the purchase receipt, or scans them, for every item set to require lot tracking.
- 2
Consume into a batch
A production order consumes those ingredient lots and outputs a finished-goods lot, so the link between flour lot and bread lot is stored at posting.
- 3
Ship to the customer
Warehouse shipments record which finished lots left for which customer and ship-to address.
- 4
Trace in either direction
The Item Tracing page starts from a suspect ingredient lot and shows every batch and customer it reached, or starts from a complaint and walks back to suppliers.
- 5
Hold what is left
Blocking the lot on its lot information card stops it being picked or shipped while you investigate.
Recipes, batch sizes and yield loss
Recipes as production BOMs
Ingredients, packaging and quantity per batch live on a production BOM, with scrap percentages for expected loss.
Recipe versions
BOM versions with start dates let a reformulated product go live on a set day while old orders finish on the old recipe.
Routings for lines and ovens
Routings with work and machine centers schedule mixing, baking, filling and packing, and capture run time for costing.
Kits and gift packs
Assembly orders build variety packs and holiday boxes from finished items without a full production order.
Premium licence needed
Production orders, BOMs and routings require Business Central Premium; distributors who only buy and sell can run on Essentials.
Out of the box versus food-specific add-ons
Distributors and producers need different things
A specialty food distributor buys, stores and resells. For them the valuable work is at the dock and in the aisles: capturing supplier lots at receipt, directed picking by expiration date, units of measure that convert cases to eaches, and dealing with the deductions large grocery chains take from payments. Most of that is standard Business Central on the Essentials licence.
A producer or co-packer adds recipes, batch costing and yield. Standard manufacturing is discrete at heart, which suits bakeries, snack makers and beverage bottlers with fixed recipes. Dairies, meat processors and brewers who split one input into several outputs, or sell by actual weight, should plan on a process or food add-on from the start rather than bolting one on after go-live.
How we vet a food add-on before recommending it
- ✓Who supports it in the United States, and how quickly they respond outside their home time zone.
- ✓Whether it has shipped updates for recent Business Central release waves without long gaps.
- ✓Whether it extends standard lot tracking or replaces it with its own tables, which makes reporting harder.
- ✓How it handles units of measure and costing, since both touch every transaction.
- ✓What happens to your data and processes if you later remove it.
Food and beverage buyers ask
Will Business Central meet the FDA Food Traceability Rule?
Business Central stores the lot links the rule is concerned with, and Item Tracing can produce lot history quickly. Whether your records meet the rule depends on which foods you handle, which critical tracking events apply and what key data elements you capture at each one. Check your obligations with FDA guidance and your food safety adviser, then we configure the system to capture those fields.
Is Business Central certified for SQF or BRCGS audits?
Those schemes certify your facility and food safety system, not software. Business Central supplies records an auditor may ask to see, such as lot history, supplier information and mock recall results. Your food safety plan decides what is recorded and when.
Can we sell direct to consumers online as well?
Yes. The Shopify connector brings online orders into Business Central and sends stock levels back. Lot numbers are assigned at picking in Business Central, so traceability covers web orders too.
We make only a few recipes. Do we still need an add-on?
Possibly not. A bakery or beverage company with fixed recipes, no by-products and fixed case weights can often run on standard Business Central Premium. Run a mock recall and a costing test during scoping before deciding. Buying an add-on you do not need adds licence cost and update risk.
Talk to us about your project.
Tell us what you run today and what has to change. A senior consultant replies with a written next step.