How ready is your plant for a recall?

Question 1 of 10

Could your team complete a full backward and forward trace, with mass balance, in under four hours today?

BRCGS states that traceability should be achievable within four hours.

Question 2 of 10

Is there a named person with authority to stop production or place a hold on every shift, including nights and weekends?

Not a role on paper. A name the current shift can say out loud.

Question 3 of 10

For covered foods, could your team produce the required traceability records as an electronic sortable spreadsheet?

Once the requirements apply, covered records must be provided to FDA within 24 hours of a qualifying request.

Question 4 of 10

Did your last mock recall simulate the decisions, not just the trace?

Hold perimeter, restart call, who contacts customers. The exercise usually stops at the spreadsheet.

Question 5 of 10

Did your last traceability exercise reconcile quantities, not just find the lots?

Mass balance is where weak records get exposed. Unexplained variance is a traceability failure.

Question 6 of 10

Does your recall plan name who contacts customers, and in what order?

Names, not titles. Order matters when the calls start.

Question 7 of 10

Are supplier lot numbers captured at receiving for every ingredient and every primary packaging component?

Missed packaging lots are among the most common audit findings.

Question 8 of 10

Could the current shift find the reasoning behind your last major quality decision?

Why the lot was released or held. Not the form that closed it, the thinking behind it.

Question 9 of 10

Do you know the strictest recall clock in your customer agreements?

Retail and foodservice specs sometimes run tighter than any certification scheme.

Question 10 of 10

If your most experienced quality person left tomorrow, would your recall response still work?

If the honest answer is no, your response plan lives in one head.