Writing
Practical writing for quality and technical teams in food and drink: recalls, withdrawals, complaints, mock recalls, and what actually happens in the first hour of an incident.
The Best Food Safety & Compliance Software for SMEs and Growing Food Brands
For a small or growing food and beverage company, choosing food safety and compliance software can be surprisingly difficult.
18 September 2026 · 16 min
Spreadsheets, WhatsApp and Email: The Hidden Cost of Coordinating a Recall by Hand
Roughly half of food and drink suppliers still coordinate incidents the same way: a spreadsheet for tracking, a WhatsApp group for talking, and a chain of emails for everything else. It works well enough in steady state, which is exactly why it survives. Then a real recall hit...
18 September 2026 · 5 min
The First 60 Minutes of a Food Recall: A Step-by-Step Playbook
In the first hour of a food recall, you do four things in order. Notify the response team, assess what you are actually dealing with, decide on immediate containment, and communicate. You do them fast, you do them with the facts you have rather than the full picture you wish y...
18 September 2026 · 5 min
Food Incident Management: How Food & Beverage Companies Should Handle Complaints, Quality Issues and Recalls
Food incidents can start with something that appears relatively small: a customer complaint, a failed test result, a packaging error, an allergen concern, or a supplier notification.
18 September 2026 · 15 min
Food Recall Checklist: What to Do in the First 24 Hours
A potential food safety incident can change quickly.
18 September 2026 · 14 min
Food Recall Management Software: What Should Your System Actually Do?
A food recall is one of the most time-critical situations a food and beverage company can face.
18 September 2026 · 15 min
Food Safety Audit Readiness: The Complete Guide for Food & Beverage Companies
Food safety audits are easier when a business is prepared for them all year round.
18 September 2026 · 15 min
How to Classify a Food Safety Incident: A Severity Framework
Classify a food safety incident by working out how serious it is across five risk dimensions, then setting one of four response levels. The five dimensions are consumer safety, operational, reputational, regulatory and financial risk. The four levels are Awareness, Manage, Mob...
18 September 2026 · 5 min
Food Safety Software: The Complete Guide for Food & Beverage Companies
Food safety software helps food and beverage companies manage the processes, records and workflows they use to keep products safe, meet regulatory requirements and respond to problems.
18 September 2026 · 14 min
Food Safety Software vs QMS vs ERP vs PLM: What’s the Difference?
Food and beverage companies often use several different software systems to manage quality, compliance, products, suppliers, manufacturing, and operations.
18 September 2026 · 14 min
Foreign Body in Your Product: What to Do in the First Hour
When a consumer reports a foreign body in your product, do three things in the first hour. Establish whether anyone has been hurt and whether the person still has the object and the product, score the risk based on the type of object and the product, and start retrieving the p...
18 September 2026 · 5 min
How to Choose Food Safety Software for a Growing Food & Beverage Brand
Choosing food safety software can become surprisingly difficult as a food and beverage company grows.
18 September 2026 · 16 min
How to Run a Mock Recall (and Why Traceability Alone Isn't Readiness)
A mock recall is a scheduled test of your ability to identify, locate and account for an affected product as if a real recall were underway. Run it by picking a batch, tracing it forward and back within a set time, and reconciling the quantities. But if that is all you test, y...
18 September 2026 · 5 min
The Incident-Ready Quality Function: A Preparedness Checklist
An incident-ready quality function is one where the information and decisions you will need in a crisis are already in place before the crisis starts. That means named ownership, current contacts, defined roles, a classification framework, and a tested response, all sorted whi...
18 September 2026 · 5 min
QMS vs Incident Response: What Compliance Software Doesn't Do When a Recall Hits
A quality management system stores your compliance data. Supplier certificates, specifications, audit records, traceability. That data is essential, and the moment a recall starts you will need every piece of it. But a QMS does not run the response. It does not tell eleven peo...
18 September 2026 · 4 min
Your Recall Plan Is a PDF Nobody Has Opened
Most food brands have a recall plan. It exists because an auditor or a retailer asked for one. It is a well-written document, and it is sitting in a shared drive that nobody has opened since it was signed off. When a real incident starts, people do not open the PDF. They open...
18 September 2026 · 4 min
Recall vs Withdrawal vs Market Action: Which One Are You In?
A withdrawal removes a product from the supply chain before it reaches the consumer, or where it poses no safety risk to the consumer. A recall goes further and asks consumers to return or dispose of a product they may already have, because it poses a risk to health. Market ac...
18 September 2026 · 5 min
TraceGains Alternatives: 10 Food & Beverage Compliance Platforms to Consider in 2026
If you are researching TraceGains alternatives, you are probably looking for software to help manage some combination of supplier compliance, food safety, quality, regulatory requirements, product information, audits, incidents or recalls.
18 September 2026 · 14 min
TraceGains vs Friday4:30: What's the Difference?
If you are comparing TraceGains and Friday4:30, the most important thing to understand is that the two platforms are designed around different operational problems.
18 September 2026 · 12 min
What Retailers and the FSA Expect During a Food Recall (UK)
During a UK food recall, two audiences are watching how you respond. Your retailers expect fast notification, accurate traceability, a clear point of contact and confidence that you have the situation under control. The Food Standards Agency expects prompt reporting of a safet...
18 September 2026 · 5 min