GTP:Defining traceable units

From TraceFood

The concept of traceable units is a key concept in chain traceability in general, and in the TraceFood standards in particular. A Trade Unit (TU) is defined as ‘any item upon which there is a need to retrieve predefined information and that may be priced, or ordered, or invoiced at any point in any supply chain’. In practice (and in TraceFood) it often refers to the smallest traceable unit that is exchanged between two parties in the supply chain. A crate of fish or crate of meat is often a TU.

A Logistic Unit (LU) is defined as ‘an item of any composition established for transport and/or storage that needs to be managed through the supply chain’. In practice (and in TraceFood) it is made up by one or more separate TU’s. In some cases, the trade unit and the logistic unit are the same. A Logistic Unit is often a pallet of fish/ meat crates being distributed from one producer to a receiver.

A production batch is also an important traceable unit which has to be referred to when dealing with internal traceability. A production batch is the traceable unit that raw materials and ingredients go into before they are transformed into products placed in new Trade Units and Logistic Units.

The relations between Trade Units, Logistic Units and production batches are a fundamental part of traceability. By recording these relations internal traceability is documented. If a food business does not record these transformations, vital information is lost and traceability may be made difficult. Nevertheless, since a production batch is an internal matter, it does not need to have a globally unique identifier.