Useful traceability starts by not calling different things “lots”
A plot, management block, reception, collection lot, commercial lot and shipment are different entities. Chain of custody should preserve their relationships and quantities rather than collapse them.
Minimum contract
Origin
Producer, farm, plot, production period and identity evidence.
Physical movement
Delivery, reception, transformation or aggregation, quantity, unit and responsible actor.
Composition
Which inputs contributed to each lot and in what quantity, with documented segregation where relevant.
Shipment
Which commercial lot fed which shipment and what evidence was frozen for that review.
Controls that prevent false traceability
- Reconcile quantities and units.
- Do not inherit READY from blocked or unknown contributing sources.
- Preserve corrections and supersession instead of rewriting history.
- Keep physical evidence separate from certifications, claims and regulatory decisions.
Traceability is not a diagram. It must reconstruct why a lot contains what it claims to contain.