Business Central for Food Distribution: Lot Tracking, Expiry, Warehouse and Traceability

Which food distribution requirements does standard Business Central cover?

Most of the traceability and stock rotation a food distributor needs is standard Business Central functionality, configured rather than built. The work is in setting it up consistently: which items are lot tracked, which carry expiration dates, which locations pick by FEFO, and how far the warehouse process goes. The gaps are specific and well known, and they are better named at the start of a project than discovered at go-live.

The table maps the usual requirements to Business Central features and says where an extension, an app or an integration comes in. Each feature is documented on Microsoft Learn and linked in the sections below.

How does lot and serial tracking work in Business Central?

Item tracking is switched on per item through an item tracking code, which decides whether the item is tracked by serial number, lot number or package number, in which transactions, and whether warehouse tracking applies. Tracking numbers are recorded on the Item Tracking Lines page from any inbound or outbound document, and posted tracking information lands on the item ledger entries, as Microsoft describes in Track items with serial, lot, and package numbers.

For a distributor the usual pattern is lot tracking from receipt: the supplier's lot is recorded on the purchase order or warehouse receipt, and it then carries through put-away, transfer and pick. Lot information cards hold extra data such as a supplier certificate reference, and a lot can be blocked to stop it being used while it is investigated. Lots can be reclassified, split or merged with the item reclassification journal, with rules on how expiration dates follow.

• Define item tracking codes for lot tracked food items, with warehouse tracking where FEFO picking is needed.
• Capture the supplier lot and expiration date at receipt, not later.
• Use lot information cards for certificates and comments, and the Blocked field for holds.
• Load opening balances with lots and expiration dates through item journals or, with directed put-away and pick, the warehouse physical inventory journal.

How do expiration dates and FEFO picking work?

Expiration dates are recorded with the lot or serial number when stock is received. With Strict Expiration Posting selected on the item tracking code, only items that have not expired are included in picks. First expired first out (FEFO) picking needs two things, according to Microsoft's How to enable picking by FEFO: an item tracking code with serial, lot or package warehouse tracking and stock posted with an expiration date, and the Pick According to FEFO toggle on the location. Inventory picks support FEFO with or without bins; warehouse picks need Bin Mandatory on the location.

When the criteria are met, lots are suggested with the earliest expiration first in picks and movements. Specific lots requested on a sales order are respected first, and the rest follow FEFO. At locations with directed put-away and pick, only quantities in Pick bins are picked by FEFO, which is a detail that shapes how replenishment is designed.

How does item tracing support a product recall?

The Item Tracing page follows a lot or serial number through posted inventory transactions in either direction, as documented in Trace item-tracked items. Usage to Origin starts from where the item was used, for example a sales shipment, and traces back to where it came from. Origin to Usage starts from the receipt or production and traces forward to every shipment. The Find Entries page then shows every record of that lot, posted and open, including stock still on hand and orders not yet shipped.

A recall is only as good as the data behind it, so we design the process around mock recalls: pick a supplier lot, trace it to customers, find open orders and remaining stock, and time the exercise. If a gap appears, such as receipts posted without lots or lots merged without care, it is fixed in the process before an auditor or a retailer asks.

• Trace Origin to Usage from the supplier lot to every customer shipment.
• Use Find Entries for remaining stock, open orders and open warehouse documents with that lot.
• Block the lot so it cannot be picked while the recall runs.
• Rehearse with a mock recall during testing and after go-live.

Which warehouse setup suits a food distributor: basic, advanced or directed put-away and pick?

Business Central offers warehouse handling in steps, described in Microsoft's warehouse management overview. Basic warehousing works order by order with inventory put-aways and inventory picks, or consolidates receipts and shipments. Advanced warehousing adds warehouse receipts, shipments, pick worksheets and warehouse picks across many orders. The most advanced level, directed put-away and pick, adds bin types, bin ranking, zones, warehouse classes (for example chilled or frozen), put-away templates and capacity rules, and it is the only level that handles bin contents in several units of measure.

The right level depends on volume and the number of people involved, not on ambition. A distributor with one site and a small team can run lot tracking and FEFO with inventory picks. A multi-temperature site with dedicated pickers and replenishment usually needs directed put-away and pick.

Can warehouse staff scan lots on mobile devices?

Yes. The Business Central mobile app for iOS and Android uses the device camera to scan 1D and 2D barcodes, and Microsoft lists the pages that support scanning for item tracking, including Item Tracking Lines, Warehouse Item Tracking Lines, Item Tracing, Item Journal, the warehouse activity lines behind inventory and warehouse picks and put-aways, and the warehouse physical inventory journal (Track items with serial, lot, and package numbers, Get Business Central on your mobile device).

For high-volume picking on rugged handheld scanners, some distributors add a dedicated scanning app from Microsoft Marketplace (AppSource) or a scanning layer built on Business Central APIs. We assess that against your volumes and devices rather than assume it.

What needs an AL extension or an app: catch weight, EDI and quality?

Catch weight is the classic gap. Business Central's documented item handling works in units of measure with fixed conversion ratios, so products sold per case but invoiced by actual weight (meat, cheese, fish, fresh produce) need an AL extension or a Marketplace app that records the actual weight per lot or per line and prices on it. EDI with retailers is the second: orders, despatch advice and invoices exchanged in a retailer's required format run through an integration with an EDI provider, an AL extension or a Marketplace app, with Business Central sales and purchase documents as the source and destination.

Quality steps such as holding a lot until a certificate arrives can often be built from standard pieces (blocked lots, QC bins, lot information cards, approval workflows) and extended where the process needs more. Our Business Central AL development team builds these extensions so they survive Business Central updates, or integrates the app you choose.

• Catch weight: an extension or app, chosen and tested in the assessment.
• Retailer EDI: an integration, extension or app, with each retailer message mapped and tested.
• Quality hold and release: standard building blocks first, extended where needed.
• Labels with lot and expiry barcodes: report layouts in Business Central, or a labelling integration.

When should a food distributor look at Supply Chain Management instead?

Business Central suits small and mid-sized distributors. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management covers inventory, warehouse and transportation management, procurement and sourcing, master planning, manufacturing and production, product information, asset management and service management for larger operations, as our Supply Chain Management page describes. The signals are about operational depth and scale, not a number of users.

If you also process or pack food, the manufacturing industry page covers Business Central against Supply Chain Management for production, and the Business Central vs Finance and Operations comparison covers the overall ERP choice. The broader distribution picture is on the distribution and wholesale industry page.

• Several large warehouses with transportation planning and load building as daily work.
• Complex replenishment and wave planning across sites that directed put-away and pick strains to express.
• Many legal entities and countries running one supply chain.
• Production, processing or packing at a depth beyond light manufacturing.

How does Solzet work with food distributors in the UK and Europe?

We implement Business Central online, which runs in the Microsoft cloud, so a UK distributor needs no local servers. Solzet is headquartered in Yerevan, and our working day overlaps with the UK and continental Europe, so workshops, testing and go-live support happen in your business hours. The same senior consultants and developers who design the setup build the extensions and stay through support.

A project starts with an assessment of your items, lots, sites, customers and retailers: which items are tracked, how expiration is handled, how the warehouse runs, which retailers require EDI and which products are catch weight. We then configure item tracking, FEFO and warehousing, decide the extension and app set, migrate items, lots and open balances, rehearse a mock recall and a full trading week in a sandbox, and go live with a cutover plan. The implementation service is on Dynamics 365 Business Central.