Livestock traceability, explained: from farm to fork
One-step-back, one-step-forward, chain of custody, recalls — traceability has its own language. This is a plain-English guide to what it means and why regulators require it.
Traceability is the ability to follow an animal — and later, a product — through every step of the supply chain. When something goes wrong, it’s what lets authorities find the source fast and contain the damage.
One-step-back, one-step-forward
At its core, food traceability (EC 178/2002 in the EU) requires that every actor can identify where something came from and where it went next. Chain those single steps together and you can reconstruct an entire journey, in either direction.
Farmso models this as a movement graph: every movement between premises is logged, so a one-up / one-down query — or a full life history — is always one click away.
Chain of custody
Each movement records who handled the animal, when, by what transport method, and to which registered premises. That unbroken chain of custody is what turns a pile of records into evidence a regulator or buyer can trust.
Recalls, done in minutes
When a disease or contamination event happens, speed is everything. With a connected movement graph, a recall trace that once took days of phone calls becomes a query: every animal, premises and batch in the affected path, surfaced instantly.