A wholesale buyer emails and asks you to put a lot number on your invoices. Or the co-op you sell eggs through wants a pack date on every carton. Or you read one news story about a recall and realize you could not, today, tell anyone which batch of anything is currently on your shelf.
So you search "farm traceability software" and the first page is enterprise platforms built for processors with a compliance officer — priced for them, too. You don't have a compliance officer. You have a packing shed, a freezer, two stands, and a tablet you ring sales up on.
Here's the part nobody tells a small farm: a lot number and a pack date are not software. They're a label and a date. The only thing software has to do is remember which batch got which label, and record what happened to that batch afterward. If your till already does that, you're most of the way there — and you don't need the enterprise platform at all.
This guide is about what that actually looks like: what a lot and a pack date are in plain terms, what the till you sell on can genuinely track, and — just as important — the line where its honesty ends and your own recordkeeping rules take over.
A lot number is just a name for "this batch"
Strip away the jargon and a lot is one batch of one thing that you want to be able to point at later: the eggs you washed and packed on Tuesday, the fifty jars from Saturday's canning run, the crate of lettuce that came off the field this morning, the steer that went to the processor on the 12th.
A pack date is the day that batch was packed, washed, or made. That's it. People write it as EGGS-1012 or LET-0419 or just "Oct 12 batch" — the code is yours to invent, and the only rule is that you can tell two batches apart and know which is older.
Why bother, if you're small?
- A buyer, market, or co-op asked for one. Lots of wholesale and consignment relationships now require a lot or pack date on the paperwork. It's often the single thing standing between you and a standing order.
- A label rule wants a pack date. Many states require a pack or "sell by" date on eggs, and dating is common on dairy and prepared foods. (Those rules are specific to your state and product — more on that below.)
- You want to rotate oldest-first without relying on memory. The quietest reason, and the one that pays off every week: knowing which carton on the shelf was packed first so it sells first.
What your till can actually track
If you ring sales up on TallyTill, the pieces are already in the right place — you're adding a label and a date, not installing a new system.
When stock comes in — a delivery you receive, or a harvest you bring to the shed — you can give that line a lot label and a pack date. From that moment the batch has a name. Every ordinary thing that happens afterward writes its own line in the stock ledger: a sale draws it down, a move carries some of it to another stand, a physical count resets it, an adjustment corrects it — each line signed, placed at a location, timed, and attributed to the device or person behind it. You don't do anything extra; selling is what writes the record.
Then, when you need to answer a question about that batch, you narrow the product's history to that one lot and read it: when it arrived, the pack date you gave it, and every movement since.
Because the till keeps logging and counting locally even when the signal drops in the field — and reconciles those lines when it reconnects — the batch's history doesn't get a hole in it just because the internet did. The lines land dated and tagged, whether they happened online or not.
Where the honesty ends: what it is, and what it isn't
This is the part the enterprise pages won't put in writing, so we will. A till that records lots and pack dates is an operational record for your own farm — it tells you what you have and when it was packed. It is not a food-safety compliance system, and it does not make you compliant with anything on its own.
| What the till actually gives you | What it is not |
|---|---|
| A lot label and a pack date on every batch you receive or harvest | A regulator's assigned lot code or grade — you write your own labels |
| A signed, dated, attributed ledger you can filter down to one lot | A food-safety or traceability compliance certification |
| A plain answer to "when was this packed, and which batch is oldest?" | Automatic expiry removal, recall notices, or temperature logs |
| For a whole-animal share, the full list of who claimed that specific lot | A per-customer "who bought this exact lot" trace for everyday shelf stock |
Two of those lines matter enough to say twice.
Your state's labeling rules stand on their own. If your state requires a specific pack-date format on egg cartons, or dating on dairy or prepared foods, follow that rule exactly as written — the pack date in your till is your internal record, not a replacement for the printed label the law wants. Treat the till as the thing that remembers, and the carton as the thing that complies.
For everyday catalog items, the lot tells you about the batch, not about the buyer. When an anonymous shopper buys a carton of eggs at an unattended stand, there's no customer attached to pin a lot to. The record tells you that batch's pack date, where it is, and when it moved — which is what rotation and a buyer's paperwork actually need. It does not, for shelf stock, tell you which customer carried off which lot.
The one place a lot is a full, per-customer trace: animal shares
There's an exception worth its own paragraph, because it's the strongest traceability a small farm gets out of the box — and it's for the product where it matters most.
When you sell a whole animal by the half, quarter, or whole, TallyTill already organizes it as a lot: one animal, one processing date, named the way a member would recognize it — Beef — October harvest. Every reservation against that lot is a named customer with a cut sheet and a balance. So for meat shares, the lot genuinely is a per-customer record: you can see exactly who claimed a share of that specific animal, what they asked for, and what they paid. (That's covered end to end in the hanging-weight guide, where the same lot carries the real processed weight and the final bill.)
Everyday shelf stock is a batch record; a whole-animal share is a batch record and a claimant list. Knowing which one you're holding is most of understanding what your till can promise.
How to use it well on a small farm
The feature does the remembering. These habits are what make the record worth reading:
- One batch, one lot. Give a lot a new label every time you receive a delivery or bring in a harvest you'd want to point at separately. Don't fold Tuesday's wash into Thursday's — that's the whole value gone.
- Write the pack date the day it's packed, not the day it sells. The date is only useful if it's true.
- Keep the label scheme boring and consistent.
EGGS-1012beats a clever code you can't decode in November. Product shorthand plus the date is plenty. - Rotate on the record, not on the eye. When two pack dates share a shelf, the ledger says which is older. Pull that one first, every time.
- Do corrections as counts or adjustments, so they land as their own dated lines. A quiet edit to a batch is a hole in exactly the record you built it to have. (The same discipline that finds shrink on an unattended stand keeps a lot honest.)
None of this turns a farm stand into a cold-chain warehouse, and it isn't meant to. It's an honest, per-batch record for the stands, sheds, freezers, and pickup days a small operation actually runs — enough to answer the buyer, satisfy the rotation, and know, when someone asks, when the thing on your shelf was packed.
Start the record before the buyer asks for it
The worst time to start tracking lots is the week a wholesale account requires them and you're reconstructing dates from memory. The best time is now, as a byproduct of ringing your stock in — so the batch already has a name and a date the first time anyone needs it.
You can run it on a phone or tablet you already own, at one stand or several. Starting is free — no credit card, and no trial clock. Card sales carry a small per-sale fee; cash and checks carry none, and current rates are on the pricing page.
Create your free account, receive your next delivery or harvest with a lot label and a pack date, and ring a sale through it. The history it writes — dated, placed, and tied to that batch — is the answer you'll want the day someone finally asks for it.