From mislabelled allergens to bacterial contamination, product recalls are becoming a weekly occurrence across the food industry. In the past few months alone, we’ve seen:
- Wall’s Mini Milk ice lollies withdrawn after packaging listed ingredients only in Spanish.
- Cheshire Farm expanding its recall due to undeclared hazelnuts.
- Several food manufacturers have issued recalls for products containing undeclared peanuts, posing serious health risks to people with peanut allergies
These aren’t one-off incidents. They’re symptoms of an outdated recall process still dependent on fragmented systems, manual communication and reactive response.
That’s exactly what our founder, Pete Gillett, covered recently in New Food Magazine. His article, ‘Why the Wall’s Ice Cream Recall is a Wake-Up Call for Food Safety’, argues that the industry has normalised recall chaos instead of fixing it.
“The Wall’s case was a labelling issue, not a contamination one,” Pete notes, “but the impact was the same – product withdrawal, reputational damage and lost confidence. A single misprint became a full-scale disruption because the systems behind it weren’t built for speed.”
Pete’s central message is clear: recalls don’t have to be an operational headache. The same technology that powers traceability, stock control and supplier verification can make recall execution faster, cheaper and far more transparent. Our approach shows that, when the process is digitised, costs can fall by up to 40%, communication becomes instant and regulators get the visibility they expect.
Efficiency through readiness
For food manufacturers, recall improvement isn’t just a compliance box to tick, it’s an open door to efficiency. The data, workflows and reporting tools used in proactive recall systems can strengthen day-to-day operations, reduce waste and build consumer trust before a crisis ever happens.
You can read Pete’s full article in New Food Magazine here.