What is product traceability?

Product traceability is the ability to identify product at any stage in the supply chain. Ideally the scope of traceability for a food product will enable the product, its ingredients and packaging materials to be traced to the starting point of all their components.

The identification 0f the product and its traceability is the primary form of traceability, but is only one integral component of traceability with other information and activity.

A product could be traced from the point of consumption by the consumer, back through its distribution and supply chain to its manufacturing processes.

Production control systems contain details of each product recipe at a number of levels starting with the individual ingredients, each identified by a unique code.

System of traceability is generally paper based although electronic methods are becoming more common. 

The use of bar codes to identify products, manufacturers, etc. means that an electronic path of traceability can be relatively easily sustained suing bar code scanners linked or downloading to computer system.

In many cases, packaging is the support for most identifier application on or within the material itself. Packaging unit or entity remains a vital component of traceability in quality assurance for successful long term trade.
What is product traceability?

Food in sachet

Sachet packaging is mostly used for powders, which are then reconstituted with water or another suitable diluents by the end user.

The reasons for the success of the sachet are many – lower unit price, handy, easy to use, convenient to carry, easier trial generation and create/attend to impulse.

Sachet are formed from laminated foils, usually including a plastic inner layer with aluminum foil laminate and an outer layer of paper that provides a printable surface. 

Sachet packaging is more common for non-pharmaceutical products, where outputs can be as high as 100 sachets per minute.

It is one alternative which has been successfully used by tea, shampoo, toothpaste, and even tomato ketchup manufacturers to penetrate rural markets.

Antimicrobial agent might be incorporated into the sachet for the purpose of controlling microbial growth and extending the shelf-life of food. Ethicap is a sachet containing microencapsulated food grade ethanol in a free flowing powdery form.
Food in sachet