If it feels like foods have been recalled frequently, you aren’t imagining things. In the first five months of 2025 alone, there have been recalls on tomatoes, cucumbers, baked goods, baby food, and more. In fact, a recent food safety report found an “alarming” increase in food recalls last year. Another study – comparing food recalls from January-April 2025 vs. the same time period in 2024 – found a 93% increase in recalls due to foreign materials, such as glass, plastic or metal fragments, as well as a 57% increase in fruit, vegetable and legume recalls.
Recalls happen – even to food businesses that consistently follow proper food safety procedures. What matters is how you handle a recall. Develop – and, most importantly, practice – a recall plan now before a recall occurs. Handling a recall properly will help minimize damages, protect public health, maintain your brand reputation, and even strengthen customer loyalty.
Follow these critical steps during a recall:
Create a plan. A good recall plan prepares your team to take the right steps during a stressful recall situation. Focus on defining roles and responsibilities, outlining communication protocols, and identifying the systems and data you’ll rely on. This will serve as an invaluable roadmap for your team during an actual recall.
Activate your team. Identify who needs to be involved – quality, legal, customer service, communications, and leadership – and make sure everyone knows their role before a recall happens. Train your team and run regular mock recall simulations with your trading partners, which will help identify process gaps so you can fix them before they become an issue.
Create a command center. Whether it’s a physical room or a virtual collaboration space, designate a central hub where your team can coordinate during a recall. This should be where updates are shared, documents are accessed, and decisions are made in real time. Use digital tools that enable fast, secure collaboration. Make sure the essentials – a recall plan, stakeholder contact info, product data, and communication templates – are easy to find and ready to use.
Identify product info. Gathering product and customer data is often the hardest –and slowest – part of a recall. Have systems in place ahead of time so you can quickly access product names, SKUs, lot numbers, and production dates, customer and distributor contact details, ingredient sources, and shipping logs. Use traceability software that links ingredients, production, and distribution data in one place. Correctly identify the product(s) that were impacted so you can act swiftly to pull these products from the marketplace.
Define the problem. Before you notify anyone, pause to verify the facts. What happened? What products are impacted? How far did they go? Who’s affected? These questions are essential for crafting a clear message and avoiding missteps. Premature or inaccurate communication can lead to confusion, expanded recalls, and loss of trust. Take the time to fully understand the scope and cause so your response is targeted, effective, and credible.
Coordinate with trading partners. Build systems so your trading partners can act fast with clear, accurate information. Clarify expectations about how you’ll communicate product and distribution details – and how you’ll work collaboratively to pull contaminated products from the supply chain, retailers, and consumers’ homes. Use integrated technology to increase transparency, accuracy, traceability, and collaboration. Tech solutions that facilitate communication and info-sharing across the supply chain will boost efficiency at a time when every moment counts.
Communicate clearly and quickly. Tailor messages to specific audiences (e.g., trading partners, regulators, consumers). Communication should be clear, direct, and actionable. Be transparent about what happened and what happens next. Ensure that your team and trading partners are relaying accurate, consistent messages to drive specific actions.
Track progress and adjust. Monitor product recovery, returns, and destruction. Track product recovery and follow up. Adjust communication or expand the recall, if needed. Use a tech platform that automates tracking, sends re-notifications, expands reach, and builds real-time progress reports for regulators and your team. Leverage tech solutions to make this daunting task more manageable.
Meet compliance. Document everything. Create a recall report that includes all details of the incident, including information about the item(s), reason for the recall, percent of recalled products located, etc. Use automated reports to make this a lighter lift.
Wrap up. Once the dust has settled, hold a post-recall debrief. Share learnings with colleagues and trading partners. Update your plan and processes based on lessons learned.
While these are principles of a well-managed recall, they may be applied differently depending on where your company is in the supply chain, size of your company, etc.
The key takeaway is to prepare for a recall in advance – develop a plan, practice with trading partners, and leverage innovative tech solutions to improve accuracy, transparency, and collaboration. Afterall, your customers and consumers won’t necessarily blame your company for issuing a recall, but they’ll be watching to see that you handle it properly.
