The First 24 Hours are Crucial in a Race Against the Clock
There are some phone calls you never want to receive. A parent’s phone rings in the early hours of prom night. An automated message with test results arrives right before a big presentation. Or a robocall at any time of any day.
For food distributors, the recall call belongs to that list.
A supplier or manufacturer flags a contaminated lot, a quality check catches an issue in-house, or an FDA or USDA bulletin lists your product category. Your normal day has just turned into a recall, and the first 24 hours are crucial in a race against the clock.
Recalls are no longer “Black Swan” Events
According to Food Safety News, food regulated by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), as well as food under the FDA jurisdiction, saw dramatic increases in volumes recalled in the third quarter of 2025.
Data from Sedgwick Brand Protection shows 145 FDA food recall events in Q3 2025, the second-highest quarterly total since early 2020, with affected units surging to 25.17 million, up about 75.8 percent from the previous quarter. Over the first nine months of 2025, FSIS recalls involved 59.99 million pounds of food, compared to just 7.91 million pounds during the same period in 2024.
Increasingly, these recalls involve serious risks such as undeclared allergens, foreign material, or bacterial contamination, including E. coli, Listeria, and Salmonella.
At the same time, FSMA’s Food Traceability Rule is pushing distributors toward detailed, 24-hour ready records for high-risk foods on the Food Traceability List, with the FDA compliance date now extended to July 20, 2028.
In this environment, recalls are a recurring operational risk and, for many food distributors, a question of survival. The difference between chaos and control often comes down to one capability: real-time food traceability software that shows exactly where every lot has been and where it is now.
FreshByte Software is built around that reality. Here is a look at what the first 24 hours of a recall can look like inside a food distribution business and how real-time traceability can change the outcome at every step.
⏱️ 0:00 – The Recall Notice Hits
A supplier calls about a potential contamination issue, your QA team flags a problem ingredient, or your category appears in an FDA alert. Suddenly, leadership wants answers, not guesses.
- Without real-time traceability:
Teams scramble through spreadsheets, paper logs, and disconnected systems to figure out which lots are in which warehouses, on which trucks, or already at which customers. With no clear picture, the “safest” option is often to pull everything that used the suspect ingredient, expanding both cost and disruption.
- With FreshByte’s real-time traceability:
Your team can search by vendor, lot, item, or date range and instantly see where the affected lot appears across the business, from on hand to in transit to already shipped. You can view the chain of custody from receiving through processing and distribution, and generate an initial “blast radius” report for leadership that shows impacted products, customers, and locations.
⏱️ 1:00 – Isolate Affected Inventory
Once the at-risk products are identified, the priority is clear: stop anything unsafe from moving downstream.
- Without real-time traceability:
Warehouse teams walk aisles trying to match pallet tags and partial labels, and mixed pallets or partial cases make it hard to know what is truly affected. To be safe, whole product lines or categories may be quarantined, driving up write-offs and service disruptions.
- With FreshByte:
Because FreshByte assigns and tracks lot numbers from receiving through every movement, staff can quickly pinpoint which bins, racks, or pallets contain affected lots. Inventory can be quarantined in the system with status codes that prevent picking or shipping, and mixed inventory can be separated with confidence. Real-time visibility turns a blunt “pull everything” response into a targeted, surgical recall.
⏱️ 3:00 – Halt Shipments and Notify Customers
As word spreads in these initial hours, your sales and customer service teams need to act fast and communicate clearly.
- Without real-time traceability:
Customer lists are built manually from invoices or email exports, and different departments may notify different customers with inconsistent messages. Some affected customers aren’t contacted quickly, while others who are not impacted receive alarming “recall” notices that damage trust.
- With FreshByte:
Because purchasing, warehouse, sales, and accounting all run on the same data, you can instantly pull the exact customers who received affected lots, along with shipment dates and quantities. Your team can export contact and order details for targeted notifications, and shipping holds can be applied to open orders containing affected products. Customers experience a controlled, precise response instead of confusing, blanket warnings.
⏱️ 6:00 – Regulators Ask for Records
Under FSMA 204, companies handling foods on the Food Traceability List must maintain Key Data Elements (KDEs) for each Critical Tracking Event (CTE) and be ready to provide records, often within 24 hours of a request.
- Without real-time traceability:
Teams scramble to assemble receiving logs, production records, temperature charts, bills of lading, and invoices from multiple systems that do not talk to each other. Gaps and inconsistencies increase the risk of findings, fines, or an expanded recall scope.
- With FreshByte:
FreshByte captures traceability and compliance data as part of everyday workflows. When regulators or major customers ask for records, you can generate traceability reports that show where the product came from, how it was processed, and where it went. Electronic records can be aligned with FDA expectations around KDEs and CTEs for covered foods, supporting the requirement to supply sortable data within 24 hours when necessary, during a recall or outbreak. Instead of piecing together a story after the fact, you present a clear, complete audit trail.
⏱️ 12:00 – Calculating the Financial Impact
As the sun sets on the day of the recall, leadership wants to know the scope and cost: How much product is at risk, and what will this mean for margins and cash flow?
Analyses often peg the average direct cost of a food recall near eight figures, and that does not include long-term losses from brand damage, litigation, or lost sales.
- Without real-time traceability:
Finance estimates exposure using broad categories. Without lot-level clarity, these estimates can swing from overly optimistic to too conservative, and over-recalling can destroy good product and margin.
- With FreshByte:
Because FreshByte ties lot tracking directly to financials, you can see the exact quantity and value of affected inventory in stock, in transit, and already sold. Credit memos, write-offs, and claims can be tied to specific lot numbers, providing a clear view of recall costs by product, customer, and supplier. Patterns in high-risk SKUs or suppliers become visible, informing future sourcing and contract decisions instead of relying on gut feel.
⏱️ 24:00 – Containment and Recovery
By the close of the first 23 hours, two different recall stories can unfold.
- Without real-time traceability:
You may still be identifying affected lots and customers, pulling broad product categories “just in case,” and assembling records for regulators. The financial damage grows, customers are frustrated, and trust in your brand erodes.
- With real-time traceability through FreshByte:
Affected lots have been identified, isolated, and removed from circulation quickly. Customers and regulators have clear, consistent information, and a safe product remains in the market, minimizing waste and disruption. Leadership has a data-backed view of the incident’s financial impact and can focus on recovery planning instead of basic fact-finding.
Real-time traceability cannot prevent every recall, but it can turn a business-threatening event into a contained, manageable incident.
Don’t Wait for a Live Recall to Test Your System
The worst time to discover gaps in traceability is during an actual recall. FSMA’s traceability requirements explicitly expect selected organizations to be able to provide complete KDE and CTE records within short timeframes, often 24 hours, to support faster, more effective incident response.
By implementing real-time traceability with FreshByte before the next incident, your team gains:
- The visibility to act quickly when a recall hits.
- The precision to pull only what is truly affected.
- The documentation to satisfy regulators and protect your brand.
- The financial insight to understand and control the impact.
Contact FreshByte Software to schedule a demo. We provide a simulated recall scenario, and our customer service team can show you how an integrated platform helps food distributors not only survive recalls but stay competitive when every minute counts.