FEFO and batch traceability

FEFO means the product with the nearest expiry date leaves the warehouse first, and medicine stock rotates by that rule. Batch number and expiry date are recorded at receipt, in storage and at dispatch. Those records are what make a recall possible and fast.

Two common rules decide which box leaves a warehouse first. FIFO (first in, first out) ships whatever arrived first. FEFO (first expiry, first out) looks at the expiry date and ships the nearest one first. The EU GDP guidelines ask for medicine stock to rotate by FEFO, and expect every exception to be documented.

When do FIFO and FEFO differ?

On most days the two rules give the same answer. The batch that arrived first was usually made first, so it also expires first.

The difference shows when that order breaks. A supplier may send an older batch after a newer one. Stock transferred from another warehouse may have less shelf life left than what is already on the rack. FIFO looks at the arrival date and leaves the shorter-dated goods waiting. FEFO moves the nearest expiry to the front, which gives the product a better chance of being used before it expires.

Where is the batch number recorded?

Batch traceability is built at three points in the warehouse.

At receipt, each batch number and expiry date is checked against the shipping documents and entered in the system.
In storage, the batch is tracked together with its rack location, and different batches are kept apart.
The dispatch record then shows how many units of which batch went to which customer.

When these three records are linked, any question about a batch has an answer ready: how many units are on the shelf and how many went where. That is what makes a recall possible, and fast. We cover the recall process in a separate article.

Stock that is close to expiry

Many customers accept goods only if a minimum remaining shelf life, agreed in the contract, is left. A batch that falls below that line can become unsellable while it sits intact on the shelf.

That is why stock nearing expiry needs to be visible early. When the warehouse regularly reports the batches that will expire before a given date, the product owner has time to decide what to do with them. A late report leaves no time for a decision.

Stock status: available, quarantined, rejected

Every item in stock has a status. Available stock can be shipped. Quarantined goods are waiting for a decision: a return, a damaged carton or a batch under investigation belongs here. Rejected goods do not go back into saleable stock, and the product owner decides what happens to them.

The status has to show in two places at once. A quarantined carton sits in a separate area or is clearly marked, and it is blocked in the system as well. Goods whose status shows in only one of those places can be shipped by mistake.

The system applies the rule, exceptions are recorded

Applying these rules by hand on every order is hard and error-prone. A warehouse management system (WMS) builds the pick list by FEFO, keeps quarantined stock out of orders and carries the batch data onto the dispatch documents.

Sometimes the rule has to be set aside. A customer may ask for a particular batch, or the product owner may want one batch to leave first. When that happens, the manual override is recorded with its reason. Exceptions are allowed; unrecorded exceptions are not.

In Türkiye, traceability for medicines goes one step further: every pack has its own serial number. We explain what that means in the warehouse in the İTS article.