A full lot trace, in minutes instead of days.
How a specialty food producer put recipes, lots and compliance on Business Central, turning recall readiness from a week of binders into a query.
About the client
A specialty food producer running process manufacturing against recipes, lot control and food safety audits. Production knowledge lived with experienced people and paper batch sheets rather than in a system that could answer for it.
One recall drill away from a very bad week
Production ran on experience and paper batch sheets. Lot numbers were recorded, but tracing one meant binders, spreadsheets and days, a mock recall took the better part of a week. Ingredient price swings reached the ledger before they reached the costing, and every audit was a scramble.
Business Central with the batch at the centre
Alphavima implemented Business Central with production BOMs as governed recipes and lot control end to end: every receipt, batch and shipment carries its lot, with expiry dates driving picking and planning. A full trace, either direction, is now a query that takes minutes.
Batch reporting captures actual yields and consumption, so costing reflects reality and ingredient price swings surface immediately in margins. Because traceability and quality records accumulate as work happens, audits became a report to print rather than a week to survive.
From batch sheets to a query
Discovery & recipe model
Recipes, lots and expiry rules modelled with QA.
Finance & inventory
Lot-controlled inventory live from receiving to shipping.
Batches & yields
Batch reporting with actual consumption and yields.
Trace & audit
Recall drills passed in minutes, dashboards live.
What changed
- Paper batch records
- Recalls traced through binders for days
- Costs known long after production
- Audit prep as an emergency
- Governed recipes and lot control
- Full trace in minutes, both directions
- Batch-true yields and costing
- Audit evidence on demand
“Our last mock recall took four days. The first one on the new system took eleven minutes, and the auditor smiled.”
Questions about projects like this
Can Business Central handle process manufacturing?
Yes for most food and beverage operations: production BOMs as recipes, lot and expiry control, and batch reporting cover the core; industry add-ons extend edge cases.
How fast can a recall trace really be?
With lot capture at every movement, a forward and backward trace is a system query, minutes, not days, as recall drills verify.
Does this satisfy our food safety audits?
The traceability and quality trail accumulates automatically, so audit evidence is produced from reports rather than reconstructed by hand.
What about catch weights and variable yields?
Variable yields are handled in batch reporting; true catch-weight needs are met with proven add-ons on top of Business Central.