Should I withdraw the whole product or only the stated batch?

Only the stated batch, unless the notice you received says otherwise. Withdrawing the entire product looks prudent but confuses the customer, who can no longer tell whether the pack at home is involved, and it complicates reconciliation with the supplier. If the batch print is illegible on some packs, treat those as involved and set them aside.

What do I tell a customer who has already fed the product?

To stop use immediately, keep the pack with the batch code visible and watch the animal over the following days. Which signs to report depends on the reason for the recall stated in the official notice, and should be quoted exactly as written there. Clinical assessment belongs to the vet, and should be sought straight away if anything unusual appears or if the animal is already fragile.

Can I write to all my customers just to be safe?

It is technically possible and almost always counterproductive. A message reaching people who never bought that product creates needless alarm and trains them to ignore later notices. Selecting by product and period is both more respectful and more effective, and it must be built before the emergency by organising orders, subscriptions and the loyalty programme.

How long do I keep the recall documentation?

At least for the period set out in your internal traceability procedure, and in any case while the account with the supplier remains open. Keep the notice received, the quantity count, the text of the messages sent with date and time, the list of returns and the reports collected from customers. That is the file showing how you handled the situation.

Pet shops and services10 min readUpdated on July 9, 2026

Food batch recall: how to notify your customers

What really identifies a batch, what to do in the first two hours, who to notify in which order and how to reach people who paid cash.

Audience: Pet shops, Pet owners
Species: All species
Scope: European Union, Italy, Valid everywhere

The moment a recall notice arrives is almost always inconvenient: mid morning on a Saturday, or the first day of leave of whoever handles ordering. From then on the shop has two simultaneous and quite different problems. The first is stopping the sale, and that is the easy part. The second is reaching the people who already took the product home and may be feeding it right now, and that is what separates an organised shop from one relying on hope. This article describes what really identifies a batch, the sequence of the first two hours, the order in which to notify, and the practical limits of tracing a counter sale paid in cash.

What really identifies a batch

The first mistake to avoid is withdrawing a product instead of a batch. The barcode identifies the product and pack size, not the production run: two identical bags on the shelf may belong to different batches, and in a targeted recall only one of them is involved. Pulling everything is simpler but costs stock and credibility, and above all it makes the notice ineffective, because the customer cannot work out whether the bag at home is the one.

Elements printed on the pack and what each is for
Element	Where it usually appears	What it is for
Barcode	Back or base of the pack	Identifies product and pack size, not the individual production run
Batch number	Near the best before date, often inkjet printed	Identifies the production run: the only element that narrows the recall
Best before date	On the same line as the batch or just below it	Helps to tell two batches apart when the print is barely legible
Establishment approval number	In the mandatory information block	Indicates the production plant, useful when the recall concerns a site
Pack size and weight	Front of pack	Many recalls concern only one pack size of the same product

European feed law requires the label to carry the reference of the batch or lot, which is why the information is always present even when it is awkward to read. Photographing the printed area rather than copying it by hand cuts reading errors between the digit one and the letter l, which are frequent in inkjet printing.

The first two hours

The sequence below should be followed in order, because each step protects the next. Stop the sale first, then count, then communicate: communicating before counting produces imprecise notices that need correcting, and a correction halves the credibility of the first message.

Block the sale
Disable the product on the till and in the online catalogue if you have one. A block at till level is more reliable than a sign, because it does not depend on the memory of whoever is serving.
Physically separate the stock
Take the packs off the shelf and put them in an area marked as not for sale, away from rotating stock. One bag put back by mistake undoes all the work that follows.
Count and photograph
Record how many packs you hold on the shelf and in the stockroom for each batch involved, with a photograph of the printed batch code. That number will close the reconciliation with the supplier.
Retrieve the official notice
Note the reference of the notice received, the date, the sender and the stated reason. Every message to customers must be traceable back to that document.
Identify who bought it
Extract the list of sales of that product over the stated period, starting with subscriptions and named orders, which are the easiest to reach.

Who to notify and in which order

Order matters because channels have different speeds and different audiences. You start with people you can reach with certainty who are probably feeding the product right now, and finish with the general notice, which exists to catch the people you do not know.

Recipients, channel and minimum content of the notice
Recipient	Channel	Minimum content
Customers on subscription or recurring delivery	Notification and direct message, then a phone call if unread	Product, batch, what to do now, how the replacement works
Customers with a named order in the period	Direct message quoting the order reference	Purchase date and pack size bought, to remove any doubt
Loyalty card holders with recent purchases	Notification or message, according to the consent held	Same wording, without quoting purchase details that are not needed
Anonymous walk in customers	Sign at the door and at the till, notice on the online storefront	Short text with the batch and an invitation to check the pack at home
Shop staff	Short briefing before opening	What to say at the counter, what not to say, who takes the hard questions
Supplier and competent authority	The channel set out in your internal procedure	Quantity in stock, quantity sold, reference of the notice received

The traceability principle applied to the feed sector requires you to know who supplied the goods and to whom you supplied them, with the known exception of the final consumer. In practice this means the step towards the supplier is documented by obligation, while the step towards the customer depends on how the shop organised its own data.

The wording of the notice

An effective notice reads in ten seconds and answers three questions in the order the customer asks them: does this concern me, what do I do now, what happens to my animal. Everything else is context and comes afterwards.

Product, pack size and batch number up front, saying where the batch code is printed on the pack.
An immediate and unambiguous instruction: stop use, do not throw the pack away, keep it for the return.
Signs to watch for in the animal and the recommendation to contact their own vet if any appear.
What the shop offers: replacement or refund, with which document and by when.
A direct contact and a named person, not a general address nobody monitors.
Date and time of the notice, because more will follow in the coming days and they must be told apart.

Tracing who bought it

This is where the work of previous months is measured. A shop selling almost everything in cash with no named reference can only put up a sign and hope. A shop with orders, subscriptions and a loyalty scheme reaches most of the households involved within an hour.

Sales channels and the chance of reaching the customer
Sales channel	Data available	Reachability
Recurring delivery or subscription	Customer, product, date of each delivery	High: you also know which pack is in use right now
Order collected in store	Customer, product, date	High, provided contact details are current
Purchase with a loyalty card	Customer and purchase history under the consent held	Medium: depends on how many accepted service messages
Purchase with an emailed receipt	Contact details, without necessarily the batch detail	Medium: it reaches the person but does not confirm the batch
Cash purchase without a card	No data attributable to the person	Low: only the sign, the online storefront and word of mouth remain

It should be said plainly that product safety messages are service communications rather than promotions, but the channel used to reach the person remains the one authorised at registration. Building that consent in peacetime, explaining that it exists precisely for cases like this, is how you have it available when it matters.

After the recall

The tail of a recall lasts weeks and determines what the next one will cost. Three activities close the loop: reconciling the numbers, collecting the reports received and reviewing the procedure.

Reconcile the quantities
Compare packs received, packs sold in the period and packs returned. The difference is the number still in circulation, and it tells you when to stop pushing further notices.
Collect the reports
Record every customer reporting signs in their animal, with date, product, batch and description. Direct them to their own vet and pass the report to the supplier.
Close the account with the supplier
Agree return or destruction with an accompanying document, and keep the proof for the period set out in your internal procedure.
Review what did not work
How many customers you reached and how fast, which channel performed best, which data were missing. Corrections are made now, not at the next emergency.
Prepare the return to the shelf
If the product becomes saleable again in another batch, say so as prominently as the original notice. Silence after a recall leaves the impression that the problem is still open.

Tools in the shop workspace

In the Animiyo shop workspace recall handling has its own section, connected to the tools that let you reach the right people instead of writing to everyone.

Product recalls section, to record the batch involved and track the status of each notice.
Orders and delivery, to extract who received that product over the stated period.
Recurring deliveries, which identify the households using the product in these very days.
Customer segments and the loyalty programme, to build the recipient list without writing to the whole archive.
Push notifications and chat for the first quick contact, and the shop storefront for the public notice.
Public listing in the shop directory, where the notice stays visible to people who are not registered customers.

Frequently asked questions

Should I withdraw the whole product or only the stated batch?: Only the stated batch, unless the notice you received says otherwise. Withdrawing the entire product looks prudent but confuses the customer, who can no longer tell whether the pack at home is involved, and it complicates reconciliation with the supplier. If the batch print is illegible on some packs, treat those as involved and set them aside.
What do I tell a customer who has already fed the product?: To stop use immediately, keep the pack with the batch code visible and watch the animal over the following days. Which signs to report depends on the reason for the recall stated in the official notice, and should be quoted exactly as written there. Clinical assessment belongs to the vet, and should be sought straight away if anything unusual appears or if the animal is already fragile.
Can I write to all my customers just to be safe?: It is technically possible and almost always counterproductive. A message reaching people who never bought that product creates needless alarm and trains them to ignore later notices. Selecting by product and period is both more respectful and more effective, and it must be built before the emergency by organising orders, subscriptions and the loyalty programme.
How long do I keep the recall documentation?: At least for the period set out in your internal traceability procedure, and in any case while the account with the supplier remains open. Keep the notice received, the quantity count, the text of the messages sent with date and time, the list of returns and the reports collected from customers. That is the file showing how you handled the situation.

What to do next

Prepare two things today that cannot be improvised in an emergency: a one page written procedure with the sequence of the first two hours and the contacts of whoever runs it, and an authorised contact channel for service messages, built by explaining to customers that it exists precisely for recalls. Then run a cold rehearsal on any product: extract the list of people who bought it last month and time how many minutes it takes. That number is your real response time.