FEFO and Expiry Management in Batchlane Production
Batchlane enforces First Expired, First Out picking so operators always use the soonest-expiring safe lot, reducing waste and expiry risk.
First Expired, First Out (FEFO) is the food production practice of always using the lot with the nearest expiry date before reaching for one with a later date. This keeps your oldest stock moving, reduces the risk of holding expired inventory, and ensures customers receive products with the maximum possible remaining shelf life. Batchlane makes FEFO automatic — rather than relying on operators to remember which lot to grab, the system surfaces the right lot at the right time and requires acknowledgment when you choose to deviate.
When you create a batch record and move to the Actual Inputs section, Batchlane looks at all available lots for each required ingredient.
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Lots are ranked by expiry date
For each ingredient, Batchlane sorts all Available lots by expiry date, ascending. The lot expiring soonest — but not yet expired — is ranked first.
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The suggested lot is pre-filled
Batchlane pre-selects the top-ranked lot for each ingredient. The operator can see the lot number, expiry date, available quantity, and location directly in the input row.
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Operator confirms or overrides
The operator confirms the suggested lot to proceed, or selects a different lot from the dropdown. If a different lot is selected, Batchlane displays an override prompt — the operator must acknowledge the reason before saving the input row.
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Override is logged
All overrides are recorded in the batch record with the timestamp, the operator’s account, and the lot that was chosen instead. The override log is part of the permanent batch record.
Batchlane surfaces three types of expiry alerts to help you act before a problem develops.
Expiring Soon
A lot’s expiry date falls within the configured warning window (default: 30 days, adjustable in Settings). The lot is still available for production use, but flagged for attention.
Expired
A lot has passed its expiry date. It is automatically blocked from selection in any batch record and flagged in the ledger for disposal or review.
Shortage with Expiry Pressure
The available quantity of the nearest-expiring non-expired lot is less than what the production run requires. You have stock, but not enough of it before the clock runs out.
You can review all active expiry alerts from the Alerts tab in the left navigation or directly from the inventory ledger, where flagged lots are visually highlighted.
The inventory ledger is sorted by expiry date ascending by default, so the lots you should use first always appear at the top. You never need to manually re-sort or scan columns to find what’s most time-sensitive — FEFO order is the default view.
The ledger uses color coding to communicate expiry pressure at a glance. Lots expiring within your warning window appear in orange; lots that have already expired appear in red. If you’re doing a quick walk through the ledger before a production run, focus on any orange or red rows first.
The Expiry Value at Risk dashboard shows the total inventory value tied up in lots expiring within the next 7, 14, and 30 days. This gives production and purchasing managers a financial lens on expiry risk — not just a list of lots, but the dollar impact of inaction.
Expiry Value at Risk is available on Growth and Pro plans. On the Free plan, expiry dates are tracked per lot and visible in the ledger, but the aggregated value-at-risk dashboard is not included.
There are legitimate reasons to pick a later-expiring lot over the earliest one. For example, a specific lot may have been reserved for a customer order that requires a certain lot code, or an earlier-expiring lot may be pending COA review. In these cases, you can override the FEFO suggestion in the batch record.When you override, Batchlane prompts you to select the alternative lot and acknowledge the change. The override — including which lot was suggested, which was selected, and the timestamp — is permanently recorded in the batch record’s deviation log. This keeps the audit trail intact even when FEFO is not followed.
Expired lots are automatically blocked from production use. If a lot’s expiry date has passed, it will not appear in the lot selection dropdown when filling out actual inputs in a batch record. You cannot override this block. To use inventory past its expiry date, you must first adjust the expiry date on the lot record with an appropriate justification note — this action is logged and visible in the lot’s movement history.
