What information and documents do food production facilities need to store?

Lawyer Ho Thu Trang, YouMe Law Company Limited answers:

Clause 2, Article 5 of Circular No. 11/2026/TT-BCT regulating food traceability under the management of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (effective from April 16, 2026) stipulates food traceability information as follows:

2. Food production facilities must establish and store sufficient relevant information, ensuring readiness to provide the following minimum information and documents on food:

a) Name, image of the product;

b) Brand, trademark, code symbol, product serial number (if any);

c) Identification code, food traceability code (if any);

d) Information on packaging specifications, packaging materials, ingredients in food;

e) The expiration date of the product for food with mandatory regulations stating the expiration date;

e) National standards, national technical regulations, international standards, regional standards, and basic standards are applied;

g) Declaration of conformity attached to the Conformity Certification Result for food with technical regulations on quality indicators, safety indicators or Standard Declaration attached to the Product Test Result Sheet issued by the Testing Organization recognized as meeting ISO/IEC 17025 standards for food without technical regulations on quality indicators, safety indicators or without organizations performing certification of conformity with corresponding national technical regulations according to the provisions of law on standards and technical regulations or without conformity assessment methods (if any);

h) Information on the volume, quantity, and code of the batch/batch of products;

i) Location and time of the traceability event performed by the production facility;

k) Name, address, contact information, business code of customers, agents, distributors, transportation units, preservation, warehousing, raw material/semi-finished product suppliers (if any);

l) Information about batches/batches of raw materials, semi-finished products (name, volume, quantity, delivery time, expiration date, packaging material, additives); test results of batches/batches of raw materials/semi-finished products performed by the raw material/semi-finished product supplier or production facility or testing facility (if any);

m) Test results of batches/batches of finished food products performed by the production facility or testing facility (if any).

Thus, from April 16, 2026, food production facilities must establish and store sufficient related information, ensuring readiness to provide the minimum information and documents on food mentioned above.