Customer SKU mapping
Every retailer has its own code for your product. Stop translating between them in your head.
Your internal code for a 1.4 kg blue wheel might be CB-BLUE-1.4. Tesco calls it TES-FBWHL14-742. SuperValu calls it SVAL-CB-14. M&S has its own EAN. Aldi has another one. Multiply that by 40 SKUs and 8 retailers and the translation work becomes a full-time job for one person — usually the same person who runs dispatch. Keystone maps every code automatically. Search either way; the system translates.
Home › Customer SKU Mapping for Food Manufacturing
Proof points
In one glance.
- Bidirectional mapping between your internal code and customer codes
- Search by your code OR by any customer code
- EAN-13 / GTIN handling for retailer barcode requirements
- Bulk import from supplier specs or EDI catalogues
The cost of doing this manually
One person becomes a translation service.
If customer SKU translation lives in someone's head — usually the dispatch lead or a long-serving QA team member — you have created an operational risk. They go on holiday, dispatches lurch. They leave, you lose institutional memory. They make a typo, a Tesco pallet gets rejected. None of this is their fault — it is a workflow that should not live in human memory in the first place.
How Keystone does it
Codes are first-class data, not spreadsheet cells.
- One internal SKU, many customer codes — Each internal SKU can have unlimited customer codes attached — private-label, EAN, EDI item code, foodservice spec sheet number.
- Bidirectional search — Type the customer code and Keystone finds the batch. Type the internal code and Keystone shows every customer code it has ever shipped under.
- Bulk import — Import customer code maps from supplier specs (PDF or Excel) and from EDI catalogues. We have done this against Tesco, Lidl, M&S and SuperValu catalogues live.
- Cobranding per customer — Same internal product, different label, different packaging variant per customer. The SKU mapping carries the cobranding rule.
- EAN-13 / GTIN — Retailer-required EANs stored against the customer code. Pallet labels, dispatch notes and COAs all reference the right EAN automatically.
Why this matters for traceability
Forward trace by customer code, not just your code.
When a retailer complains 3 weeks after dispatch, they will quote their code, not yours. Keystone resolves that to the right batch chain immediately — the same way you would resolve a complaint quoted in your own code. Forward trace works both directions: your internal trace and the retailer-facing trace return the same chain.
FAQs
Frequently asked.
How many customer codes can a single product carry?
No practical limit. Our founding partner carries 8–14 customer codes per internal SKU on its busier wheels.
Can we import from a Tesco or Lidl supplier spec PDF?
Yes — the import tooling parses standard retailer supplier specs and EDI catalogues. Done live against multiple retailers.
What happens when a retailer changes a code?
Update the mapping. Effective immediately. The old code is retained against historical batches so traceability stays intact.
Can the same product have different recipes per customer?
Yes — each customer SKU can map to its own variant of the base recipe, while still rolling up to the same internal SKU for production planning.
Does this work without retailer EDI?
Yes. Customer SKU mapping is a Keystone internal feature. EDI is a separate scoped integration if you want it.