Traceability: from the barcode to buyer trust

Traceability has become a regulatory matter

The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) covers cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soy and wood, as well as a wide range of derived products. Its application was postponed twice. Regulation (EU) 2025/2650, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on December 23, 2025, set its application from December 30, 2026 for large and medium-sized companies and from June 30, 2027 for micro and small companies (EUR-Lex). In May 2026, the European Commission’s simplification review kept the start of application at the end of 2026 (European Commission). Beyond the dates, the direction is clear: international buyers will require proof of the origin of what they buy.

For Latin American exporters of coffee, cocoa and other agricultural products, this means that traceability has gone from being good practice to being a condition for market access. And the requirement is not limited to Europe: large domestic buyers are also increasingly asking their suppliers for it.

It starts in the warehouse

Traceability toward the international buyer is built on internal traceability. If a company doesn’t know precisely what it has in its warehouse, where it came from and when it expires, it cannot prove anything to a buyer.

In our work with a food services business group, the supply chain diagnosis found shortcomings we see often. There were no storage protocols differentiated by product type (cold, dry, fruit and vegetables, supplies). The lack of systematic coding made it impossible to rigorously apply rotation by entry date or expiry date. Control was done with paper forms and spreadsheets, without barcode readers, which produced errors, a lack of traceability and no early warnings.

The basics, done well

The response we prioritized was deliberately basic. A warehouse redesign by product type, with differentiated conditions and protocols. A comprehensive coding system using international standards for identifying products and logistics units, combined with visual codes. Barcode readers integrated with the ERP to record movements in real time and generate expiry alerts. And standardized receiving, storage, picking and dispatch policies, with integrated quality controls.

None of these measures is technologically sophisticated. Together they transform the company’s ability to know what it has, where it is and where it came from. And they produce immediate benefits: less expired product, fewer shortages and fewer losses from poor rotation.

Food safety and reputation

In food supply chains, traceability is also a food safety issue. Poor traceability creates risks of cross-contamination and of product degradation through expiry, with consequences for consumers’ health and for the company’s reputation. The ability to quickly identify which batch reached which customer is what makes it possible to contain an incident before it turns into a crisis.

From the company to the chain

The next level is end-to-end visibility: integrating information on demand, inventory, production, distribution and delivery in one place. In the business group’s transformation portfolio, this visibility was framed as an executive dashboard that would allow the chain to be managed proactively.

For exporters, the challenge extends backward: to suppliers and producers. In designing a strengthening program for entrepreneurs in one region of the country, export readiness and regulatory compliance emerged as critical capabilities before any international expansion. Many companies first need to consolidate their domestic operations, including the ability to document the origin and quality of what they produce.

Technology comes later

Advanced traceability solutions exist, from cloud platforms to distributed ledgers. They are useful once the foundation is built. Implementing them on top of a warehouse without coding or reliable records produces a sophisticated system fed with poor information. The right sequence is that of the pyramid: first the basics, then integration, then visibility and finally evidence for third parties.

The business case for traceability

Traceability is often presented as a compliance cost. In our experience, it has a business case of its own when measured properly. In the supply chain diagnosis, losses from obsolescence, deterioration and inventory shortfalls carried significant weight, and most of them were explained by problems that traceability solves: poor rotation, no expiry alerts and no control by location.

Building that business case requires a baseline that many companies don’t have. The first step is to classify losses: how much is lost through expiry, deterioration, shortfalls and dispatch errors. With that information, the investment in readers, labels, ERP configuration and training is compared against a concrete saving. In our engagement, that exercise turned traceability from a technical topic into an initiative prioritized by the board.

People and processes

Traceability projects often fail for the same reason as other operational projects: the technology is installed, but the way of working doesn’t change. If warehouse staff don’t record every movement, the system loses reliability within a few weeks. That is why training staff in receiving, storage, picking and dispatch, and clearly defining who is responsible for each location, are as important as the barcode reader.

We also recommend a quality check before storage, a kind of internal customs where it is verified that what arrives matches what was ordered and meets the quality conditions before it enters inventory. It is a simple step that keeps problems at the source from becoming warehouse problems.