The exact KDEs you need to capture depend on which Critical Tracking Event you’re documenting. At receiving, you record the traceability lot code from your supplier, what the product is, how much arrived, when, and where. At production, you record the new lot code, input lot codes consumed, location, date, and quantity. At shipping, you record what left, in what quantities, the lot codes, who received it, and when.

The specificity matters. “Lot number” alone doesn’t satisfy the requirement — you need a traceability lot code that can be linked across events. If your receiving record says lot 2847 and your batch record says lot 2847 but your shipping record only says “white bread, 400 loaves,” the chain is broken.

For food manufacturers already running digital lot tracking, the transition to KDE-compliant records is often a matter of ensuring the right fields are captured consistently rather than building a new system from scratch.