How far down does the labeling and documentation have to go down before it is a realistic guarantee?
Sounds a lot like the European Union’s labeling schemes.
Has to happen in lots of industries now. Yeah, something of a paperwork nightmare, and Bill and Suzie who just want to sell a few vegetables or whatever from their farm stand have to keep records too—though presumably they shouldn’t be going through too many distributors.
If the international food chain were safer or consumers weren’t interested in buying organic food and such, it wouldn’t be necessary.
Could distributors keep the records for retailers? With automation that should presumably be more easily done, but if you want to follow the chain for food poisoning, for example, you’ve got to track where everything came from, so yes, it would have to be to the retailer level.