The Importance Of Recall Preparedness for Supply Chain Resilience

At recent meetings with the FDA and USDA in Washington, DC—which I attended as Co-Chair of the steering committee for the Alliance for Recall Ready Communities, along with Gillian Kelleher and Dr. Darin Detwiler—the agencies provided updates on their recall modernization efforts. They both acknowledge the increasing challenge of complex supply chains, and continue to prioritize recall process improvements. They expressed strong interest and support for continued collaboration with the Alliance and the industry as a whole.

We updated the agencies on the Alliance’s efforts, explaining how our workgroups are finalizing draft models for a supply chain recall process, recall simulations, and standardized recall data. We plan to pilot implementation of the Recall Ready Community model in the first half of 2026. Ultimately, both meetings had similar takeaways: now is the time to address recall management as an important part of resiliency in increasingly complex supply chains.

Resilient Supply Chains: Connectivity, Communication & Action

With federal policies and priorities continuing to shift under the current administration, companies need to stay focused on protecting consumers and their businesses. While regulatory agencies have committed to improving the recall process, the industry must still shoulder the responsibility of protecting consumers when something goes wrong.

The way recalls are managed impacts consumer trust, public health, business continuity, and brands’ reputations, for better or worse. The negative impact of recalls often grows exponentially when companies and their trading partners are reactive vs. prepared. That’s where resilient supply chains come in.

A resilient supply chain allows food companies to anticipate and mitigate risk, identify and contain issues quickly, and absorb disruption without losing control. It shortens recovery time, reduces financial and reputational damage, and satisfies regulatory compliance. Just as importantly, it builds confidence—with consumers, regulators, and trading partners—through clear communication and decisive response.

This level of resilience is built on preparation. Recall modernization is a critical part of that preparation. Modern recall management treats recalls as a shared supply chain process, not isolated company events. It replaces siloed systems and fragmented workflows with connected data, standardized communication, and coordinated execution across partners.

Trademarks of a Resilient Supply Chain

Individual companies can’t be entirely resilient on their own. True resilience is built across the supply chain, through shared systems, aligned expectations, and coordinated action with trading partners. A resilient supply chain:

• Enables fast, accurate data flow
• Coordinates recall plans with trading partners in advance, and
• Practices for recalls collaboratively.

Resilience is characterized not just by how quickly a company reacts, but by how well the entire supply chain works together. The following trademarks separate resilient supply chains from reactive ones:

• Built-in visibility – Trading partners have real-time insight into product movement, testing, and crisis response.
• Actionable data – Clean, structured information empowers better decision-making, data sharing, and response.
• Clear, fast communication – Predefined protocols, easy to access contact data, and customized templates help trading partners distribute the right messages to the right people without delay. This helps key stakeholders—including trading partners, consumers, and regulators—take quick, proper actions.
• Calculated adaptability – Resilient trading partners have the ability to shift sourcing, adjust operations, or re-route product without compromising safety or traceability.
• Interoperability – Systems work together across functions—testing, traceability, recall execution—rather than operating in silos.
• Dynamic training – Supply chain partners must prioritize ongoing training, regular practice, scenario planning, mock recalls, and post-incident reviews to test, learn, and improve. Working collaboratively helps trading partners prepare for real-life recalls so they can act quickly, confidently, and properly to reduce risks, damage, and disruption.
• Coordinated responses – Resilient supply chains work together, ensuring a coordinated, integrated response to recall management. Think about recalls as supply chain activities, not individual company activities.
• Proactiveness – Resilient supply chains are proactive, not reactive, working continuously to improve safety and quality, mitigate risks, and address issues before they become widespread problems.

Resilience isn’t a backup plan, or a measure of how well a company improvises under pressure. It’s the result of deliberate preparation—building systems, aligning partners, and practicing responses long before a recall occurs. True resilience assumes disruption will happen and ensures the supply chain is equipped to respond with clarity, coordination, and control when it does.

Work Together to Protect Public Health

Effective recall management starts well before a food safety issue is identified. Resilient supply chains also work to minimize the chances of a recall occurring in the first place. This includes proactive risk monitoring activities and the use of tech tools to flag potential safety risks early, helping prevent breaches and subsequent recalls.

Still, disruptions will continue to happen. With the right systems and processes in place, companies can identify and contain affected products faster, communicate clear instructions, and reduce risk to public health, brand reputation, and consumer trust.

As the industry looks ahead, preparedness is a practical place to focus—within individual organizations and across the supply chain—long before the next recall demands it. That focus aligns with ongoing recall modernization efforts at both the agency and industry levels, as resiliency is increasingly recognized as essential in today’s complex, global supply chains. Progress will depend on putting those shared frameworks into practice across the supply chain.