Traceability: How to Verify Where Your Superfood Actually Comes From

Traceability is the ability to follow a product backwards through every step of its chain. In EU food law it is a legal obligation under Regulation (EC) 178/2002, but the obligation is one step back and one step forward. A brand is legally required to know its immediate supplier, not the field.

That gap is where most sourcing claims live. Here is how to test them.

Six questions worth asking

1. Which country, and which region within it? A brand with real sourcing answers instantly and specifically. A vague answer, or a continent, means the material was bought from a broker.

2. When was this harvested? Harvest date is different from best-before date, and far more informative. Brands with short chains usually know it. Brands buying from warehouses usually do not.

3. How was it dried and processed? Shade, sun, tunnel, freeze-dry. Someone who has been to the site knows. Someone who has not will answer with an adjective.

4. Is this a single lot or a blend? Both are legitimate. What matters is whether the brand will tell you.

5. Who did you buy it from? Cooperative, named exporter, trading house, or open market. All valid answers. Refusal to answer is itself an answer.

6. What does the batch code refer to? A batch code tied to a harvest is meaningful. A batch code tied only to a packing run tells you when it was put in the bag, not when it left the ground.

How to interpret the answers

You are not looking for perfect answers. You are looking for specific ones. A brand that says we buy from three cooperatives in the Poro region and this lot is from the second one is telling you more than a brand that says ethically sourced from Africa.

Equally, a brand that says honestly we buy this one through an importer and do not have field-level traceability is being more useful than one that implies otherwise.

Red flags

• Origin described only by continent.
• Photographs of farmers with no named location.
• Certification logos with no certifying body code.
• Health claims, which are illegal in the EU unless authorised and are a reliable signal that other rules are being treated loosely.
• Best-before dates several years out on a leaf powder.

What we publish

For each ATTOTE line we state country and region of origin, the processing method, and whether the lot is single-harvest. Where we do not have field-level traceability yet, we say so rather than filling the gap with adjectives.

Ask us the six questions. If we cannot answer one, that is worth knowing too.

ATTOTE Original sources African superfoods and natural beverages from Cote d'Ivoire and West Africa, and ships across France and Europe.