The Food Standards Code requires a packaged food to carry a lot identification. None of the twelve alerts on page one of FSANZ’s recall-alert list on 31 October 2026 used it. Every one named the affected stock by a date mark, the separate code the Code requires in Standard 1.2.5. The list held 228 alerts in all, so twelve is one page of it, read on one day.
What a lot identification has to identify
A food for sale that is in a package and has to carry a label must state its lot identification. That comes from Standard 1.2.1, which lists it alongside the name of the food.
The definition lives in Standard 1.1.2. A lot identification is a number or other information that identifies two things: the premises where the food was prepared or packed, and the lot the food is part of. Both. A code that names the premises and not the lot, or the lot and not the premises, doesn’t meet the definition.
A “lot” is an amount of food that the manufacturer or producer identifies as having been prepared, or from which foods have been packaged or otherwise separated for sale, under essentially the same conditions. The definition gives examples: a particular preparation or packing unit, and a time “ordinarily not exceeding 24 hours”, which is about a day. Those are illustrations inside the definition, so the Code doesn’t set a day as a ceiling. It leaves the maker to say what counts as one lot.
Nothing in the definition above or in Standard 1.2.2-3 prescribes a form for a lot identification. Standard 1.2.1-24 requires any word, statement, expression or design the Code puts on a label to be legible and prominent enough to contrast distinctly with the background, and any words to be in English. If you want to know what one looks like, you need the pack in your hand, and nobody read one for this post.
Where a lot identification isn’t required
Standard 1.2.2 names two exceptions. One is an individual portion of ice cream or ice confection. The other has two conditions, and both have to hold: the food is in a small package, and that small package is stored or displayed for sale inside a bulk package or bulk container whose own labelling includes the lot identification.
Being small isn’t enough on its own. A small package that isn’t sitting inside a bulk pack with the lot identification on it still needs its own.
The Code’s definition of a small package is one with a surface area of less than 100 cm2. For scale, a 10 cm by 10 cm square is 100 cm2.
The date mark is a separate instrument
The date mark is the use-by or best-before date, covered in an earlier post on use-by and best-before dates. Its wording is prescribed: Standard 1.2.5-5 requires the words “Best Before” or “Use By”, with the date or a reference to where the date sits on the label. A manufacturer’s or packer’s code is a different thing. Standard 1.2.5-6 says the wording rule doesn’t stop one being added to the label, and neither provision prescribes a form for it. The lot identification is a third thing: its content is prescribed, the premises and the lot, and its form is not.
Standard 1.2.5 sets out the date mark. If the food has a use-by date, that’s the date mark. If not, it’s the best-before date. Bread with a shelf life of less than 7 days has two extra options, a baked-for date or a baked-on date.
The exceptions open with a condition: unless the food is an infant formula product, date marking isn’t required if the best-before date is 2 years or more after the date it’s determined, or if the food is an individual portion of ice cream or ice confection. Those two limbs are paragraphs of the subsection the opening words govern, so the condition qualifies both. The 2-year exemption doesn’t reach an infant formula product, whatever its shelf life.
“Infant formula product” is the Code’s umbrella term in Standard 1.1.2. It covers infant formula and follow-on formula, each of which the Standard defines as an infant formula product. Food for infants is a different category: the same Standard says it does not include infant formula products.
A food in a small package gets its own rule. The only date marking information required is the use-by date, if there is one, so a small package of a best-before food needs no date mark.
The rules are firm, the recall count is one day
The rules are the part you can lean on. The lot identification requirement, its two-limb definition, the two exceptions and the date-marking rules are written text in the Standards, read from the in-force versions.
The definition of a lot comes next. “For example” and “ordinarily” give the maker room, so it tells you what a lot usually is and can’t tell you where a given company drew its line.
The recall count is thinnest. Twelve alerts is one page of 228, read on one day. It can’t tell you how often an alert names a date mark, and it can’t tell you an alert never names a batch code, because nothing Peeka retrieved says one can’t.
What FSANZ’s recall alerts name
FSANZ coordinates food recalls in Australia but can’t order one. It has no enforcement powers; those rest with the jurisdictions, and most recalls are started by the food business itself.
The page separates three things. A consumer recall is the most extensive type and recovers the food from every point in the production and distribution chain, consumers included. A trade recall recovers food that hasn’t been sold directly to consumers, so distribution centres and wholesalers, and sometimes hospitals, restaurants or other caterers. A food withdrawal removes food from the supply chain where there’s no public health or safety issue, such as an underweight pack or a quality defect.
On page one of the list, the field that says which stock is affected is a date. Eight of the twelve alerts head it Date marking(s); four write Date Marking: inline. One of the eight does both, labelling a date under each product it lists. Here is what each one put there:
| Alert | Recall reason | Date marking(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Maria’s Pasta, various products | Foreign matter | Use By 04 Nov 26 and other dates per product |
| Bomberry, various products 150 g | Foreign matter | All Best Before Dates up to and including 20 January 2028 |
| Maruto Nagasaki Castella Cake 238 g | Undeclared allergen (egg and soy) | Best Before: 14 FEB 2027 & 25 JAN 2027 |
| Arla Protein puddings 200 g | Foreign matter | Best Before 28/04/2027 and Best Before 09/05/2027 |
| ALDI Stores, Farmdale Full Cream Long Life Milk 1 L | Microbial contamination | Best Before 05JUN27 |
| Tweedvale Dairies, Reduced Fat Milk 1 L and 2 L | Microbial contamination | Use By 21/10/2026 |
| Nissin Aburasoba noodles 82 g | Undeclared allergen (milk) | Best Before 2026-12-08 |
| Astor Chocolate Wafer Stick 150 g | Undeclared allergen (cashew) | Best before: MEI 2027 (May 2027) |
| Sunlife spring roll wrapper 200 g | Undeclared allergen (gluten) | best before 15/03/2029 |
| Supercol food and liquid thickener | Microbial contamination (cronobacter) | Best Before 28/07/27 |
| JC Seafood salmon portions 275 g | Undeclared allergen (soy) | Best Before 18.09.26 |
| Alog, Red Hat Cookia 80 g | Undeclared allergen (egg, milk and soy) | All best before dates up to and including 25 FEB 2027 |
None used a lot or batch code. Six of the twelve are undeclared-allergen recalls, and between them they name egg, milk, soy, gluten and cashew. Three are foreign matter and three are microbial contamination. The list is a general food list, and nothing on it is sorted by who eats the food.
Two of the twelve named a use-by date that had already passed on 31 October: Tweedvale’s Use By 21/10/2026, and Maria’s Pasta Use By 30 Oct 26, one of several dates for that recall.
Do the alerts concern your pack?
FSANZ’s consumer FAQs say: “Recalls for products that have reached consumers are published on our current recalls webpage and on our Facebook and Twitter accounts”.
Every one of the twelve alerts also tells the consumer what to do, in FSANZ’s words. On the Farmdale milk alert: “Consumers should not eat this product. Consumers should return the product to the place of purchase for a full refund. Any consumers concerned about their health should seek medical advice.” The allergen alerts address the allergy first. Astor’s reads, “Consumers who have a cashew allergy or intolerance should not consume this product”, followed by the same medical-advice sentence, which is identical across all twelve alerts.
FSANZ’s consumer FAQs add: “It is important to seek early medical attention if you are feeling unwell and suspect you have consumed a food product that has been recalled. You may wish to tell the doctor about the recalled product.”
General information, not medical advice. Chat with your GP or child health nurse.