What you have to write down

Record keeping in a spice business is unusually light and unusually important, because the risk you are managing arrives with the material rather than being created by you.

Three records that have to join up

The lot record: every incoming delivery, with supplier, their lot number, date, quantity and the certificates.

The formula: versioned and dated, with percentages, grinds and mixing parameters.

The batch log: what was made when, from which incoming lots, at which formula version, and how many units resulted.

Any one alone answers nothing. Together they answer the only question that matters: a jar with this code, what is in it and where did it come from.

What the regulation expects

Under preventive controls the emphasis for a product like this falls on supplier verification, because the pathogen risk is inherent in the incoming material and the kill step usually happened upstream. So the records about who you bought from and what they certified carry more weight than records about your own process.

If you are operating under a cottage food exemption these may not be required at all, which is exactly why so few small producers keep them and why the first wholesale buyer's questionnaire is a shock.

What the business needs

Beyond compliance, the same records answer commercial questions. Which supplier's material performs. Whether a blend has drifted. What your real yield is. Why this batch tasted different.

Add retained samples, sealed and cold, one per batch. Paper tells you what you intended; the retained sample tells you what you actually made.

Where it lives

Somewhere that is not only your handwriting and not only your laptop. A shared document and a physical folder covers the failures that actually happen.

And keep it for at least the shelf life of the product, longer for blends. The question arrives late or not at all.

References