The record architecture
What the code carries, how it binds to a record, and the regulatory picture in full.
Food, seafood and aquaculture
Marking that survives caustic wash-down
Your crates come out of the wash still readable, so a recall lands on those carriers, not on everything packed that day. The batch comes off your own system.
- No labels to reapply at the wash bay, and no fragments in the product stream.
- The mark is formed in the material, so caustic and brine have no bond to attack.
- Your quality manager withdraws carriers, not a day of pack.
Why the label fails
A wash bay at 6am is where a traceability system is actually tested, and it is nowhere near the room where the audit was passed.
- Adhesive fails at the bond. A lifted corner is a hygiene finding before it is a traceability gap.
- A label fragment loose in the product stream is a foreign body incident.
- Ink has to dry on a damp surface, then survive a wash it was never formulated for.
- A blocked head is line time, and it never happens at a convenient hour.
- So the real traceability ends up on a run sheet and somebody's memory.
Recall a batch, not a day
Recall scope is not set by how much is affected. It is set by how much your records leave in doubt.
| What you can evidence | What you withdraw | Why it lands there |
|---|---|---|
| A product code and a pack date | Everything packed that day, and in practice that week | Every gap in the identity chain gets rounded up into the recall. |
| A run number on a run sheet | Still the day, because the run boundary is paper | No quality manager stakes a withdrawal on a run sheet. |
| A batch bound to a crate that still reads | Those carriers | The record supports the narrower scope, so somebody signs it. |
Where the mark goes
The crate becomes a reusable key. The batch never goes into the mark.
- Step 1
Marked once, in the wash
The existing fleet is marked in batched sweeps during planned wash cycles, so no carrier comes out of service to be marked.
- Step 2
New carriers at receipt
New crates are marked before they enter circulation, so no unidentified carrier reaches the floor.
- Step 3
Bound at fill, released at empty
Fixed readers bind the batch to that crate in your own system, then release it at the wash. Nobody types anything.
- Step 4
Graded at the marking point
Every mark is graded against ISO/IEC 15415 and written to the asset record, so contrast loss shows up as a trend.
What carries the identity
The carrier is marked. The food itself stays unmarked.
| Carrier | Where the mark goes | Engineering notes |
|---|---|---|
| Returnable crates, bins and totes | A boss, rib or moulded flat outside the contact zone | The marked surface has to drain and clean like the rest of the crate. |
| Fish bins, dolavs and bulk carriers | A moulded flat that survives vessel, wharf and plant | Mixed fleets are normal here, and the composition rules are written for them. |
| Pallets, timber and plastic | The block, or the top deck | Pool assets only where the operator's terms allow a secondary owner mark. |
| Hooks, racks, change parts and dies | The frame or the body, clear of the product path | Fibre at about 1064 nm. An annealed mark leaves the passive surface intact. |
| Outer cartons and cases | The panel the downstream reader sees | CO2 at 10.6 micron, with a narrow window between a clean mark and burn through. |
The engineering detail
For the quality manager, the engineer and food safety.
Wash survival, and the proof
A laser mark is a change to the material itself, so there is nothing for a detergent to lift. What moves is contrast over cycles: some plastics grey off under caustic, some hold for years. Your assets are marked, run through your own wash regime, and graded against ISO/IEC 15415 before and after. That grade becomes the acceptance criterion.
The regulatory picture
The Food Act 2014 asks for one-up one-down and mandates no code format, with records held 4 years minimum. Fair Trading Act section 31A runs a 2 working day reporting clock to MBIE. US FSMA 204 has a compliance date of 20 July 2028 on a defined food list. GS1 Sunrise 2027 is a retailer-led target with no penalty attached.
Pool crates and mixed fleets
Pool terms are checked during scoping. Some permit a secondary owner mark in a defined area. Some prohibit permanent marking. Some already carry an asset identity, and binding to it beats duplicating it. Where pool assets are out of bounds, identity is built around the crates and bins you own.
Reading it in a chiller
A Data Matrix to ISO/IEC 16022 uses ECC 200, which carries Reed Solomon error correction inside the symbol. It resolves when part of it is soiled, scratched or under condensation, and it reads rotated and at an angle. A gloved hand at the end of a shift never lines up neatly on a target.
When the plant link drops
The station runs from a pull-ahead cache, so an ERP maintenance window never stops the line. Confirmation records queue locally and replay in order, carrying the original mark timestamp. If the cache runs dry, the crate is held at the station. It never invents an identifier, and it never increments a batch itself.
Food contact and hygiene sign-off
Mark placement is agreed with your food safety programme owner: drainage, soil trapping, contact zone boundaries and whatever cleaning validation your programme requires. Your programme owner holds that approval, and the boundary goes into the acceptance specification before the build starts.
For the rest of the committee
This gets forwarded to people who were not on the call.
Start here
Engineering specifications
Material matrix, source selection, symbol grading and the speed model.
Integration architecture
Connection patterns, failure behaviour and network posture, for IT.
Programme assurance
The document set, the acceptance gates and the handover pack.
Send us a crate
Send the crate, bin or pallet you actually run, in the condition it comes back to the wash bay in. Tell us your wash regime. You get back a numbered report: the parameter set, the grade against ISO/IEC 15415, and the durability after your cycle.
Last updated August 21, 2026