The words this industry actually uses.

Lot

A quantity of material produced or received under uniform conditions and identified by a single code. The lot is the unit food traceability works in: when a recall happens, the question is never "which pallet" but "which lot, and where did all of it go".

In Tray: Tray creates a lot at receipt and stamps it with supplier, dates, location and condition.

SKU — Stock Keeping Unit

A single sellable or stockable item, distinct from every other by recipe, size, pack format or label. One product can span several SKUs; one SKU can span thousands of lots.

FEFO — First Expired, First Out

A picking rule that consumes the stock closest to its expiry date first, regardless of when it arrived. In food manufacturing FEFO matters more than FIFO, because a lot received later can expire sooner.

In Tray: Tray enforces FEFO on picks and tells the operator which lot to take.

FIFO — First In, First Out

A picking rule that consumes the oldest stock first by receipt date. Common in general warehousing, and insufficient on its own for perishable goods, where expiry rather than arrival order determines what should move.

Lot genealogy

The parent-child record of which input lots were consumed to make an output lot, through every intermediate step. Genealogy is what makes a trace possible in both directions: forward from an ingredient to every customer who received it, and backward from a finished case to every input that went into it.

Forward and backward trace

Backward trace answers "what went into this?" from a finished product. Forward trace answers "where did this go?" from a suspect ingredient. A recall needs both, and needs them in minutes rather than days.

BOM — Bill of Materials

The structured list of inputs and quantities required to produce one unit of an output. A BOM differs from a recipe in that it is scaled, costed and consumed by the system, rather than read by a person.

In Tray: Tray generates BOMs from recipes and deducts the right lots when a batch is produced.

Sub-recipe

An intermediate preparation that is produced once and then consumed by other recipes, such as a sauce base or a cooked protein. Sub-recipes are where allergen tracking usually breaks in a spreadsheet, because the allergen enters two steps away from the finished label.

Yield

The quantity of output actually produced from a given set of inputs, as against the quantity theoretically expected. Persistent yield variance is a costing problem before it is a quality problem.

Co-manufacturing

Producing a product to another company's specification and under their brand, sometimes called co-packing. A co-manufacturer runs several customers' programs through the same plant, which makes lot segregation and allergen control harder than single-brand production.

Private label

Producing goods sold under a retailer's own brand rather than the manufacturer's. A single plant may run several retailers' private-label programs alongside its own lines, each with different specifications and labelling requirements.

HACCP — Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points

A preventive food-safety framework that identifies hazards in a process, sets critical control points where those hazards can be controlled, and requires monitoring and records at each one. HACCP is a methodology a plant implements, not a certificate it buys.

In Tray: Tray produces the monitoring and lot records a HACCP plan requires. It does not write or certify the plan.

CFIA — Canadian Food Inspection Agency

The federal agency responsible for food safety enforcement in Canada, which administers the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations. A CFIA inspector asking where a lot went expects an answer from records, not recollection.

GFSI — Global Food Safety Initiative

Not a standard in itself, but a body that benchmarks other food-safety certification schemes, including SQF, BRCGS and FSSC 22000. "GFSI-certified" is imprecise: a plant is certified against a GFSI-benchmarked scheme.

SQF — Safe Quality Food

A food-safety and quality certification scheme benchmarked by GFSI, widely required by North American retailers as a condition of supply. An SQF audit examines records as much as premises.

21 CFR Part 117

The United States FDA regulation setting current good manufacturing practice and risk-based preventive controls for human food, issued under the Food Safety Modernization Act. It applies to facilities exporting into the US as well as domestic ones.

Allergen declaration

The identification of regulated allergens present in a product, including those arriving through sub-recipes and shared equipment. The failure mode is almost never an unknown allergen; it is a known allergen that entered through an ingredient nobody traced.

In Tray: Tray rolls allergens up through sub-recipes automatically and flags them on production lines, kitchen sheets and labels.

NCR — Non-Conformance Report

A record raised when a product, process or material departs from specification. The NCR documents what was found, what was done with the affected material, and who decided.

CAPA — Corrective and Preventive Action

The process of correcting a non-conformance and addressing its cause so it does not recur. Auditors generally care less about whether problems occur than about whether CAPA is evidenced and closed.

QC — Quality Control

Inspection and testing performed against a specification, typically at receiving and at defined points in production. Catching a problem at the dock costs a rejection; catching it after production costs a batch.

PO — Purchase Order

The buyer's instruction to a supplier specifying what is ordered, at what price and by when. Receiving reconciles the physical delivery against the PO.

BOL — Bill of Lading

The carrier's document accompanying a shipment, listing what is being transported and to whom. At receiving it is the first record checked against the physical load and the PO.

Law 25

Quebec's modernised private-sector privacy legislation, which strengthens consent, breach-reporting and individual rights for personal information held by organisations operating in the province. It applies to a food manufacturer's employee and customer data, not to its lot records.

GST and QST — Goods and Services Tax, Quebec Sales Tax

The federal and Quebec sales taxes, which Revenu Quebec requires to be shown separately on an invoice issued in the province. An invoice that combines them can be rejected.

In Tray: Tray shows GST and QST separately on invoices and warns before sending one that would be rejected.