Be ready before you need it
If you manufacture, import or supply food wholesale, keep a written system, with current contacts, and have it where you can find it.
The plan names the team and after-hours phone numbers, and holds the regulator contacts and a customer list checked this quarter.
The plan is a file on the laptop of someone who left last year. Half the customer numbers go to the wrong desk.
In Australia this is a duty for manufacturers, importers and wholesale suppliers, of any size. A retailer that prepares food for immediate consumption is generally not caught, unless it also supplies or makes food for sale on, like a café selling its own jam. Other countries differ. In New Zealand every operator, including food service, needs a procedure, must notify MPI within 24 hours of deciding to recall, and must run a simulated recall every 12 months. In Malaysia anyone preparing or selling food they know or have reason to believe is injurious, unfit or adulterated must recall it immediately.