Templates and records · IFS Food · Clause 5.9

IFS Food product mock recall

The dress rehearsal for a crisis: you decide to withdraw a fictitious batch and check whether the organisation can locate it, notify and recover it in time.

In one sentence

In IFS Food the mock recall tests, at least once a year, the procedure for incident management, product withdrawal and recall — crisis team, up-to-date contacts, decision, communication to customers and authorities, recovery — and must be recorded with its timings and improvements, because clause 5.9 includes a KO requirement.

Content reviewed on 17 October 2026

Where the standard requires it: IFS Food · Clause 5.9 Clause references follow the numbering of IFS Food Version 8. Where a record underpins a KO requirement, its sheet says so.
Type of information: Mandatory record IFS Food KO requirement (5.9)
Who fills it in: Crisis management team Convened by quality or top management; sales, logistics and production take part
When: At least once a year It is worth varying the scenario and the day and, sometimes, running it without warning the team
How long it is kept: Shelf life plus one year, at least IFS Food requires records to be kept in line with legislation and for at least one year after the specified shelf life; if the product has none, the period must be justified (2.1.2).

What the standard requires

What IFS Food demands and what it leaves to your judgement

IFS requires a procedure for managing incidents, product withdrawals and recalls, with a designated crisis management team, up-to-date emergency contacts and arrangements for informing customers, authorities and, where appropriate, consumers. The effectiveness of the procedure is tested periodically, at least once a year.

The exercise must be realistic: choose a batch, take the decision, locate the customers and check that the phones are answered. An exercise that stops at querying the system is a traceability test, not a recall test.

The legal obligation to withdraw a food and inform the authority when it may not be safe is set out in Article 19 of Regulation (EC) 178/2002.

Read it in context: Senior management commitment, in the IFS Food Academy

Structure

Fields the template should include

Scenario simulated and batch chosen
Start time, decision time and close time
Crisis team members called and their response
Customers and quantities affected
Communications: to customers, to the authority and to the certification body, if it applied
Quantity recovered or located against the quantity dispatched
Problems found
Improvement actions and review of the procedure

Example

Example: mock recall for an undeclared allergen at a fictitious biscuit factory

Company, people and figures are fictitious: the example only shows what a properly completed record looks like.

Field	Content
Scenario	Oat biscuits · batch GA-26-201 · possible presence of undeclared milk
Start	3 June 2026 · 08:30 · crisis lead notified
Decision	09:10 · simulated withdrawal of the whole batch (8,400 packs)
Location	6 customers identified by 09:40
Contact	5 of 6 customers reached by phone before 11:00; one with out-of-date contact details
Recovery	7,950 packs located in customer warehouses · 450 sold to consumers
Authority	Draft notification prepared, not sent as it was an exercise
Improvement	Quarterly review of customer emergency contacts · sales manager

At the audit

Mistakes auditors commonly flag

The exercise is limited to pulling the customer list out of the system.
Out-of-date emergency contacts for customers and authorities.
The timing of each phase is not recorded.
Problems found do not generate actions or change the procedure.
Always the same scenario, prepared days in advance.

In Kimobox

How this record is kept in Kimobox

1The mock recall returns the affected batches, raw materials and customers in minutes.
2Communications and the timing of each phase are kept in the same exercise record.
3Alerts to the crisis team can be sent as push notifications with read receipts.
4Improvements identified are opened as actions with an owner and a deadline.

Frequently asked questions

What people ask us before getting started

What is the difference between withdrawal and recall?

Withdrawal takes the product out of the distribution chain; recall reaches all the way to the consumer, usually with a public notice. The procedure must cover both cases.

Does a real incident count as a mock recall?

If during the year there was a real recall handled using the procedure and it is documented, it is usually accepted as proof of its effectiveness. You must be able to show the timings and the lessons learned.

Should the authority be notified during an exercise?

The notification is not sent, but it is worth preparing the draft and checking that the contact is correct: it is one of the parts that most often fails in a real case.

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Sources

Where each figure comes from

References to the official text in force. If a standard is revised, this page is updated and the review date says so.

IFS Food Version 8 — Standard for auditing product and process compliance in relation to food safety and quality IFS Management GmbH · Version 8, April 2023
Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law (Articles 18 and 19) EUR-Lex · 28 January 2002