Food Traceability

Last Updated: April 09, 2025

The Issue

In November 2022, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) released its final rule on food traceability, which is intended to quickly identify and remove potentially contaminated food from the market, resulting in fewer foodborne illnesses and/or deaths. The rule establishes new, stringent recordkeeping requirements for people who manufacture, process, pack, or hold foods that are on the FDA’s Food Traceability List.

The compliance date for all persons subject to the food traceability rule is January 20, 2026; however, the FDA announced on March 20, 2025, its intention to extend the compliance date for the Food Traceability Rule by 30 months. 

Retail Impact

According to the FDA, anyone that makes, processes, packs, or holds foods on the agency’s Food Traceability List will need to collect and maintain data about those foods, including convenience retailers. The list includes foods such as “fresh cut fruits and vegetables, shell eggs and nut butters, as well as certain fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, ready-to-eat deli salads, cheeses and seafood products.”

The complex level of detail retailers must collect is staggering. In particular, the data must trace the food back through the food supply chain to its origin and to the lot level. If asked, the retailer must provide the required data on potentially contaminated food to the FDA within 24 hours.

Not only are retailers independently responsible for gathering and keeping data on the foods that they sell, but if they make or “transform” any foods themselves (including something as simple as chopping fruits or vegetables to put in a packaged cup), there are even more heightened record-keeping responsibilities. If a retailer operates its own warehouse or central kitchen where these foods are handled and distributed to its store locations, there’s even more data to be collected and maintained.

Exemptions

Any retail food establishment which sells less than $250,000 of food, including beverages, per year (when taken as a 3-year rolling average adjusted for inflation using 2020 as the baseline) is entirely exempt from this rule.

Any retail food establishment selling between $250,000 and $1,000,000 of food, including beverages, per year (when taken as a 3-year rolling average adjusted for inflation using 2020 as the baseline) must comply with every aspect of the rule, EXCEPT for the requirement that they maintain an electronically sortable spreadsheet of the documentation. The records must still be kept in some format and potentially provided to FDA within 24 hours of a request but are not required to be in spreadsheet format.

Any retail food establishment selling more than $1,000,000 of food, including beverages, per year (when taken as a 3-year rolling average adjusted for inflation using 2020 as the baseline) must comply with every aspect of the rule.

NACS Position

NACS has been working with the grocery industry and others to delay implementation of the final rule and to study its impact further. NACS supported the Food Traceability Enhancement Act from the previous Congress, which sought to require the FDA to conduct at least nine pilot projects in coordination with retailers and others in the food industry to identify and evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of food tracking technologies. 

Separately, the annual agriculture spending bill for Fiscal Year 2025 in the House includes language that would delay the final rule’s implementation until the FDA conducts at least four pilot projects on the food traceability rule and documents that the rule can be followed and would be effective in achieving “low-cost” food tracing.