A day in the life
You need 56 pallet tags printed before the first truck rolls out at 6. Every tag needs a GS1-128 barcode, a valid SSCC, your PTI data, and the correct lot code. Oh, and 12 of those pallets? They're for your partner down the road — his brand, his data, his traceability. But your crew is printing them.
The old way
You pull up the spreadsheet. Manually type in the lot number. Copy the GTIN from another spreadsheet. Hope the SSCC sequence is right — you lost track last Tuesday when the formula broke.
For your partner's pallets, you switch to his template. Different GS1 prefix. Different format. You enter his data by hand, praying you didn't transpose a digit in the barcode that'll get rejected at the retailer's dock.
The crew is waiting. The trucks are idling. Every minute costs money.
The FieldToFile way
You open FieldToFile in your browser. Select today's lot. The commodity, harvest date, growing region, and GS1 data are already there — you set it up once.
You tap "Print 44 pallets." They're yours — your GTIN, your SSCC sequence, auto-incremented. Tags start rolling off the Zebra.
Then you switch to your partner's order. Tap his name. His GS1 data loads automatically. "Print 12 pallets." Done. His brand, his traceability record, zero chance of a data entry error. And those 12 pallets? They count against his quota, not yours.
Total time: 4 minutes. The first truck rolls out at 5:15.
Over the season
Your operation ships 20 trucks a week at peak. That's about 1,060 pallets a week — 4,240 a month. With the Professional plan at $1,499/month, you're paying about $0.35 per pallet for complete, audit-ready traceability.
Your partner down the road ships through your facility. His 600 pallets a month come from his quota, not yours. He started on the Starter plan at $199/month and upgraded to Growth when volume picked up. He didn't even need his own printer — your crew prints for him.
The FDA pushed FSMA 204 enforcement to July 2028 — but Walmart and Kroger aren't waiting. When your buyer asks for traceability records (and they will), you export everything in 30 seconds. Harvest date, pack date, lot code, SSCC, ship-to — every Critical Tracking Event, every Key Data Element. That's not just compliance. That's keeping your shelf space.
When you pack for another grower, the tags come out right — their PTI data, their SSCC, their brand. And it counts against their quota, not yours.
The FDA pushed FSMA 204 to 2028. Your buyers didn't.
Major grocery chains aren't waiting for the FDA. Here's what they expect from produce suppliers right now.
Different crops have different traceability requirements. Find yours.
Small / seasonal grower
Mid-size grower
Large multi-commodity
High-volume shipper
Annual plans: pay 10 months, get 12. Need a burst? See booster packs and full pricing.
Your first truckload is on us — up to 56 pallets, fully compliant. No credit card.