Glossary
32 terms that food brands, producer groups and exporters run into once they start proving where their food comes from. Each definition leads with a one-sentence answer, and every regulatory entry links to its official source.
Last reviewed .
Food traceability is the ability to follow a food product through each stage of production, processing and distribution: where it came from, what was done to it, and where it went next. In practice it means keeping records that link each batch to its inputs and to its buyers.
Regulators use traceability to run recalls quickly. Brands increasingly use it to back claims such as single origin, organic or a named farm.
A batch, or lot, is a quantity of product grown, made or handled together under the same conditions and identified by one batch or lot number. Traceability records are kept per batch, so a question about one pack can be answered by looking up its batch.
Indian and EU labelling rules require prepackaged food to carry a lot or batch identification.
In IndiTrace: Every record hangs off a batch: its source, each processing step, the documents attached to it, and the QR label printed for it.
Batch traceability means being able to take any batch number and list where its ingredients came from, what happened to it, and who received it. It is narrower and more useful than company-level traceability, because problems and claims attach to specific batches.
Farm-to-fork traceability covers the whole chain, from the farm where a crop was grown to the product in the buyer's hands, instead of only one company's own step. It needs each party in the chain, such as the farmer, the aggregator, the processor and the packer, to record its part against the same batch.
One step back, one step forward is the traceability principle in EU food law: every food business must be able to identify its immediate supplier and its immediate business customer. It comes from Article 18 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, the EU General Food Law.
Each business only has to know its neighbours in the chain. Full farm-to-fork traceability links those steps together.
Chain of custody is the documented sequence of who held a product, and when, as it moved from producer to buyer. A gap in the chain is where substitution or mixing can happen unnoticed.
A custody transfer is a recorded handover of a batch from one party to another, such as a farmer selling to an FPO or a processor dispatching to a packer. It records who handed over what quantity, to whom and when.
In IndiTrace: A custody transfer is one of the steps that can be confirmed on the blockchain and shown on the trace page.
These are chain-of-custody models, defined in ISO 22095. Identity preservation keeps one source's product physically separate all the way to the buyer. Segregation keeps certified product apart from uncertified product but may mix certified sources. Mass balance allows physical mixing and tracks certified volumes on paper.
A claim such as "single estate" needs identity preservation; mass balance cannot support it.
A recall removes an unsafe or non-compliant product from sale and, if needed, from buyers. A mock recall is a practice run that tests how fast a business can find every affected batch and every buyer that received it.
Batch-level records keep a recall narrow: the business can name the affected batches instead of pulling everything.
Food provenance is where a food comes from, meaning its place, producer and how it was produced, together with the evidence that supports that claim. A provenance claim is only as strong as the records behind it.
Single-origin describes a product whose main ingredient comes from one defined place, such as one farm, estate, region or cooperative, rather than a blend. Buyers pay more for it, which is also why it is worth faking.
In IndiTrace: A trace page shows the recorded source of that exact batch, so a single-origin claim points at a named farm or supplier instead of a label.
A GI tag is a registered name for a product whose qualities come from its place of origin, such as Darjeeling tea or Mithila makhana. In India, GIs are registered under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999.
A GI protects the name. It does not verify that any particular pack is genuine, which is where batch records help.
Adulteration is adding, substituting or removing something so that a food is not what it claims to be, such as colouring in chilli powder or papaya seeds mixed into black pepper. It is mostly an economic fraud: the more a name sells for, the more it pays to fake.
Batch records with lab reports attached let a brand show what was tested in the batch the buyer is holding.
A certificate of analysis is a laboratory document reporting test results for a specific sample or batch, for example moisture, pesticide residues or aflatoxin. It only supports a claim about the batch it names.
In IndiTrace: Lab reports and certificates can be attached to a batch and opened from its trace page.
QR code traceability means printing a QR code on a pack that opens a web page with that batch's records, so a buyer or inspector can check the source and processing steps with a phone camera. The code must point to the batch, not just to the brand's homepage, to count as traceability.
A trace page is the public web page a pack's QR code opens: the batch's source, processing steps, documents and verification status. It is sometimes called a product passport or batch passport.
In IndiTrace: Each batch gets a trace page at a permanent web address. Buyers need no app and no login, and scans never use proof credits.
A GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) is the GS1 number behind a product barcode such as an EAN or UPC. It identifies a product, not a batch: batch numbers and expiry dates are carried as extra data alongside it.
GS1 Digital Link is a GS1 standard that puts product identifiers such as the GTIN and batch number into a web address, so one QR code can serve both a shop's checkout scanner and a shopper's phone. GS1's Sunrise 2027 goal is for retail checkouts to read 2D codes such as these by the end of 2027.
Sunrise 2027 is an industry goal, not a law, and brands are advised to print a 2D code alongside the existing barcode during the transition.
A digital product passport is a structured digital record of a product's origin, composition and other lifecycle data, reached through a data carrier such as a QR code. The EU is introducing mandatory passports under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, which excludes food.
In food, "product passport" is used informally for a batch trace page rather than for a legal format.
Blockchain anchoring means writing a fingerprint (hash) of a record to a public blockchain, so anyone can later check that the record has not changed since. The record itself stays off-chain; only its fingerprint and the time it was written are public.
Anchoring proves integrity, not truth: it shows a record was not edited after it was anchored, not that what was recorded was correct.
A hash is a short, fixed-length value calculated from a piece of data. Changing even one character of the data produces a completely different hash, which is why a stored hash reveals later edits.
Polygon is a public, Ethereum-compatible blockchain network. Its transactions can be looked up by anyone on a block explorer such as Polygonscan.
In IndiTrace: IndiTrace writes record fingerprints to Polygon PoS and pays the network fees, so users never handle cryptocurrency.
A proof credit is IndiTrace's billing unit: one credit covers one confirmed blockchain record, such as a new batch, a processing event, a custody transfer or a published update. QR scans and reading history never use credits.
A typical batch with its source and one processing step uses about two credits.
An FPO is a company or cooperative formed and owned by farmers to buy inputs, aggregate produce and sell together. India's central scheme for forming and promoting 10,000 FPOs was launched in 2020.
A CBBO is an agency appointed under India's 10,000 FPO scheme to form FPOs in a cluster and support them through their first years with training, business planning and market links.
FSSAI registration or licensing is the authorisation an Indian food business needs from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. The smallest businesses take a basic registration; larger ones need a state or central licence depending on turnover and activity.
APEDA, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, promotes and regulates exports of scheduled agricultural and processed food products from India. Exporters of those products register with it and receive a Registration-cum-Membership Certificate (RCMC).
These are APEDA's online systems for recording export traceability in specific product chains: TraceNet for certified organic products, GrapeNet for grapes and HortiNet for other fresh fruit and vegetables. Exporters in those chains register farms and lots in them where the destination market requires it.
In IndiTrace: IndiTrace does not submit to these systems. Its batch records and trace pages can sit alongside them as evidence a buyer can scan.
NPOP is India's national programme that sets organic production standards and accredits the certification bodies that certify growers, processors and exporters. Organic products exported from India must be certified under it; for sale within India, the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS-India) is also accepted.
In IndiTrace: IndiTrace does not certify anything as organic. A business can attach its organic certificate to a batch so buyers see it on the trace page.
The EUDR, Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, requires companies placing cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood, and listed products made from them, on the EU market to show they are deforestation-free and legally produced, including the geolocation of the land where they were grown. After a December 2025 amendment it applies from 30 December 2026 for large and medium operators and from 30 June 2027 for most micro and small ones.
In IndiTrace: IndiTrace does not file EUDR due diligence statements or run deforestation-risk analysis. Its batch records and trace pages can sit alongside an EUDR compliance tool as evidence a buyer can scan.
A due diligence statement is the declaration an operator submits to the EU's information system before placing products covered by the EUDR on the EU market, confirming it has checked that they are deforestation-free and legal.
FSMA 204 is the US FDA rule that requires businesses handling foods on its Food Traceability List to keep key data elements (KDEs) for critical tracking events (CTEs) such as harvesting, cooling, packing, shipping and receiving. Its original compliance date was 20 January 2026, and FDA has proposed moving it to 20 July 2028.
It applies to domestic and foreign businesses producing food for the US market. Check FDA's page for the current compliance date.
A trace page puts the batch, its custody transfers, lab reports and blockchain fingerprint on one page a buyer opens from the pack.