How To Manage a Product Recall in Your Grocery Store: 4 Steps

Each year, hundreds of food products are recalled due to contamination, mislabeling, or allergen concerns — and this number is on the rise.

These food recalls jeopardize your customers’ health and safety, and they also threaten your grocery store. Without a failsafe plan to handle recalls, your profit margins will suffer, you’ll lose customer trust, and sales will screech to a halt.

But there’s good news: Being proactive and knowing exactly how to manage a product recall can help you avoid this disaster.

In this blog, we’ll explore four essential steps to keep your grocery store’s customers and profits safe during a food recall.

Grocery Store Food Recalls 101

Let’s start with the basics. A product recall occurs when a manufacturer, distributor, or regulatory agency determines that a food item poses a health or safety risk and needs to be removed from sale. There are three main reasons why products are recalled:

• Bacterial contamination: Raw meats and leafy greens can be contaminated with harmful bacteria like Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli.

• Foreign objects: Improperly produced or packaged food products can contain plastics, glass shards, or metal fragments.

• Undeclared allergens: Sometimes, food products contain or come into contact with common allergens such as peanuts, soy, or gluten.

You should also know the three levels of food recalls:

• Class I: This is the most serious type of recall. Eating these products carries a significant risk of illness or death for consumers. Class I recalls require immediate action.
• Class II: These recalls represent a moderate risk to consumers. Examples include improper nutrition labeling or minor contamination that doesn’t pose a lasting health risk.
• Class III: These recalls carry the lowest risk. Recalled products violate FDA guidelines for proper handling or labeling, but are unlikely to cause any adverse health effects.

Regardless of the classification or reasoning, you should take immediate action when a recall affects your store.

Your customers’ health and safety come first, so prioritize removing products from the shelves quickly and communicating effectively. Once you’ve protected your customers from recalled food products, you can focus on safeguarding your bottom line.

Here’s how.

1. Monitor Recall Notifications Actively

Continuing to sell a recalled product in your grocery store can be a nightmare. At best, you’ll lose customers’ trust. At worst, you’ll harm their health.

That’s why it’s so important to establish a system for actively monitoring food recalls. Your best bet is to sign up for recall notifications from these organizations:

• FDA Recall Alerts: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website includes an up-to-date list of all food recalls. You can also subscribe to the FDA’s email list to get safety alerts sent right to your inbox.

• USDA FSIS: The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) maintains a detailed database of food recalls. You can report food safety issues on this site as well.

• State/local health department: Especially if you rely on local artisans and vendors for your grocery store’s inventory, keep an eye on your state and local health department website for safety alerts and recall information.

• Supplier and distributor alerts: Many wholesalers and distributors send direct notifications about recalled products, so make sure you’re on their email or phone lists.

Consider setting up email filters or creating a dedicated inbox for recall notifications to make sure they don’t get lost in your inbox, and check for new alerts as part of your standard morning opening procedures.

2. Pull Affected Items From the Sales Floor

Once you realize you have a recalled product on your shelves, your priority should be to remove all affected items from the sales floor.

Manually checking each product takes valuable time and can lead to human error, so we recommend relying on your point of sale (POS) system instead. Here are three features that can help:

• Barcode label scanning: Recall notices list specific UPC and SKU numbers to help you find and cull affected items. Instead of reading each number, use your POS system’s barcode scanner to identify recalled products instantly and accurately.

• Batch and lot number tracking: Some recalls only affect items produced or packaged in a specific batch. Your POS system should help you track the lot and batch numbers to differentiate between safe and recalled products.

• Real-time inventory tracking: Your POS system should track your inventory levels in real time, helping you determine exactly how many recalled products are on the sales floor and how many you’ve sold. That way, you can ensure all recalled items are accounted for.

These three features cut down on the amount of time it takes to address a recall, and they reduce the likelihood of unsafe food products remaining on your grocery store’s shelves.

Related Read: Grocery Store POS & Inventory Management Software: 6 Top Providers

3. Alert Customers to the Recall

During a recall, effective customer communication is critical. It protects your shoppers from illness and harm, and it safeguards your grocery store’s reputation for transparency and safety.

After removing recalled products from your grocery store’s sales floor, reach out to customers who may have already purchased them. Here are two of the best ways to communicate with shoppers:

• In-store signage: Display signage near your store’s entrance, at the checkout counter, and in the aisle where the affected products are normally located.
• SMS or email marketing: You can also send notifications to your most loyal customers using your SMS or email marketing list.

Your communications should include pertinent information like the product name, affected UPC and lot numbers, the reason for the recall, and instructions for returns and refunds.

Your staff and POS system should be trained and prepared to handle recall-related returns. Purchase history data should make it easy to confirm that a customer bought a recalled product and issue a refund.

4. Track Recall-Related Shrink

Food recalls can be costly for grocery stores. When a large batch of inventory is affected, it increases your shrinkage rate significantly and slashes your sales potential.

Fortunately, you should be able to recover financially through manufacturer or distributor reimbursement — as long as you have the right documentation.

That’s why our final tip is to utilize your POS system’s shrinkage tracking and vendor management to keep meticulous records of affected inventory and your recall-related losses. This should allow you to link recalled products to the right distributor and provide them with detailed reports for accurate reimbursement.

Related Read: What Causes Shrinkage in Grocery Stores? + 4 Ways To Manage It

How To Manage a Product Recall With Our Grocery Store POS Software

You have a plan to manage product recalls safely and efficiently in your grocery store — now all you need is the right tools.

IT Retail, our all-in-one grocery store POS solution, includes the features you need to track stock levels, identify affected lots and batches, and keep accurate shrinkage reports for reimbursement. Plus, its innovative features help you save time, nurture customer loyalty, and boost your profits.

Create a custom POS solution for your grocery store and get an instant quote using our Build and Price tool.