How to run a mock recall
in a food factory, step by step.

What a mock recall is, and what it is not

A mock recall is a documented simulation of a product recall. You select one batch (or one raw-material lot), assume it is unsafe, and then execute your traceability and recall procedures for real: identify affected production, identify every customer who received it, reconcile the quantities, and produce the paperwork, all against the clock.

It is not the same thing as a traceability test, although the two overlap and are often run together. A traceability test proves your records can connect a lot to its inputs and outputs. A mock recall additionally tests the decision-making and communication side: who convenes the recall team, who would call the customers, who would notify the FSAI, who drafts the notice. BRCGS Food Safety BRCGS traceability requirements treats these as related but distinct requirements, traceability is tested under clause 3.9, and the withdrawal/recall procedure is tested under clause 3.11.

The distinction matters in an audit. A producer who can trace a batch in twenty minutes but has no evidence of ever rehearsing the recall decision chain will still pick up a non-conformance.

How often you need to run one

BRCGS expects the traceability system to be tested at least annually, and the product withdrawal and recall procedure to be tested at least annually as well. Many retailers' own supplier standards ask for more, twice a year is a common contractual requirement for own-label suppliers, and some specify that at least one exercise per year must include a raw material or packaging lot, not just finished product.

In practice, producers who run a short mock recall quarterly find audits dramatically less stressful than those who scramble once a year. The exercise takes an afternoon when your records are in order, and exposes exactly where they are not when they aren't.

The step-by-step procedure

1. 1
   Nominate the lot, and log the start time

   Have someone other than the QA manager choose the batch: a production date and product picked semi-randomly, ideally one with multiple customers and at least one export or private-label dispatch. Write the start time down immediately, the clock is part of the evidence.
2. 2
   Define the scenario

   Give the exercise a realistic trigger: "supplier notified us that milk delivered on the 14th failed an antibiotic residue test" or "a customer complaint of foreign material in lot B-247". The scenario decides whether you trace forward from a raw material or backward from finished product, do both across the year.
3. 3
   Trace backward (one step up)

   Identify every raw material and packaging lot that went into the affected batch: supplier names, delivery dates, supplier lot codes, quantities, and the goods-in records (including COAs) for each.
4. 4
   Trace forward (one step down)

   Identify every dispatch that contained the affected batch: customer, delivery address or depot, dispatch date, dispatch-note number and quantity per line. Include transfers to other sites, samples sent out, and product sold at farm gate or markets, these are the ones spreadsheets miss.
5. 5
   Reconcile the mass balance

   Quantity produced must equal quantity dispatched + quantity in stock + waste/rework/samples. BRCGS expects the reconciliation to land within a tolerance your procedure defines, many producers work to ±1–2%. An unexplained gap is a failed exercise, even if every dispatch was found.
6. 6
   Simulate the communications

   Draft (do not send) the customer notification and the FSAI notification. List the phone numbers you would call, in order. If a real recall touched retail, the FSAI expects notification without delay, Article 19 of EU food safety regulations places that duty on the food business operator, not on the retailer.
7. 7
   Record the end time and write it up

   The report should state: scenario, lot, start/finish times, quantities reconciled, percentage recovery, every document referenced, the people involved, and, critically, what did not work and the corrective action for it. A mock recall that finds no weaknesses is usually a mock recall that was not honest.

What the final report must contain

The five most common mock recall failures

Doing this in spreadsheets vs. doing it in a system

Everything above is achievable in Excel, producers pass BRCGS audits on spreadsheets every year. The cost is time and fragility: a typical spreadsheet-based mock recall takes half a day of cross-referencing goods-in books, make sheets and dispatch folders, and it depends on the person who built the spreadsheets being available and the VLOOKUPs being intact.

In Keystone, the same exercise is a single action: pick the batch, and the full chain, supplier deliveries upstream, dispatches and customer branches downstream, with quantities, renders in under 30 seconds, exportable as a signed PDF. The mass balance is computed from the same records, so the reconciliation is arithmetic, not archaeology. Producers who moved off spreadsheets typically compress the whole documented exercise from an afternoon to under 90 minutes, most of which is writing the narrative report.