Ovotrack complies with new proposed traceability requirements in the USA

By Categories: All, Egg Grading, Egg Processing, News, Product Information

Ovotrack complies with new proposed traceability requirements in the USA

FDA Food Safety Modernization Act

The FDA in the USA has published a proposal for an add-on to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) to establish additional traceability recordkeeping requirements. The proposed rule, ‘Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods’ applies to producers and processors of all foods on the Food Traceability List, which includes shell eggs.

When finalized, the proposal would standardize the data and information that egg producers and processors have to record and maintain, and the information they have to send to their customers to facilitate rapid and accurate traceability.


The FDA requires an ‘electronic sortable spreadsheet’ containing relevant traceability information within 24 hours after a request by the FDA during an outbreak or recall.

In addition to keeping records of KDEs, the proposed rule also requires to establish and maintain traceability program records to help regulators understanding your traceability program, including the way lot codes are created and assigned to cartons, cases, pallets, bills of loading and invoices.

Ovotrack covers all requirements of the proposed rule.


In the proposed rule Critical Tracking Events (CTEs) are described for which Key Data Elements (KDEs) have to be recorded. For the US egg industry, the main CTEs are:

Critical Tracking Events (CTEs)Key Data Elements (KDEs)
FDA FMSA - Farm
  • Producing eggs
FDA FMSA - Receiving
  • Receiving nest run eggs
  • Receiving packaging material
FDA FMSA - Transformation
  • Grading and breaking eggs
  • Packing eggs and egg products
FDA FMSA - Shipping
  • Loading out trucks
  • Shipping eggs and egg products to customer

Examples of the CTEs and KDEs for the egg industry and how they are handled within Ovotrack are:

Food Safety Modernization Act

Ovotrack

CTEsKDEs - examplesModulesDescription
FDA FMSA - Farm
  • Production log
  • Cooler log
  • Nest run pallet label
  • Unique pallet ID for each nest run pallet, scanned after production and scanned during pickup.
FDA FMSA - Receiving
  • Received nest run (first receiver)
  • Received packaging
  • Received graded eggs
  • Scanning farm labels or print new labels during receiving nest run eggs, packaging material or graded eggs.
FDA FMSA - Transformation
  • Used nest run
  • Used packaging material
  • Packed products
  • Scanning nest run pallet labels and packaging pallet labels at the loader or the breaker.
  • Communication with grading or breaking machine.
  • Labelling cases and pallets.
FDA FMSA - Shipping
  • Bills of lading
  • Scanning out cases or pallets and connect them to the sales order pick lists.
  • Generating bills of lading.

Where Ovotrack solutions are focusing on the production floor, other software systems are focusing on other areas, such as ERP systems and invoicing software. Ovotrack has realized integrations with more than 50 different software systems, in order to get automatic relevant information into Ovotrack or the other way around.

Examples of interfaces Ovotrack already built are:

Sage

Exchequer

Aeros

Quickbooks

Microsoft Dynamics

Datalinx

Pronto

SAP

Unitas Software 2

EGGBASE

Would you like to discuss how Ovotrack can help you with your traceability needs? Please call +31(0)343 453 416 or email info@ovotrack.nl.