Batch, expiry and FEFO for an Ethiopian pharmacy

The regulator specified the data model

The Ethiopian Food and Drug Authority requires that batch number, manufacturing date and expiry date be part of the printing on a product's label — typewritten materials and stickers are explicitly not acceptable. Where the manufacturer prints this during production, a written commitment to show it on the finished label has to be submitted.

More usefully still, for pharmaceutical products the GS1 DataMatrix barcode is to be encoded with the GS1 Global Trade Item Number, the expiration date, the batch or lot number and a serial number.

Read that as a specification and it is precisely a batch-traceable, FEFO-capable stock record. It is already on the box. Most pharmacies scan the GTIN, ignore the other three fields, and then manage expiry by walking the shelves with a notebook.

FEFO is not FIFO, and the difference costs money

FIFO issues the oldest receipt first. FEFO — first expired, first out — issues the earliest expiry first. Most of the time they agree. When they disagree, FIFO writes off stock.

Batch 2 arrived second and expires first — short-dated stock from a supplier clearing their own shelf, which is common. Under FIFO you issue all 200 units of Batch 1 before touching Batch 2, and if you do not sell 200 units before the end of June, some of Batch 2 expires on your shelf while perfectly saleable later-dated stock sits behind it. Under FEFO you issue Batch 2 first and lose nothing.

This is not a rare edge case. Any time a supplier delivers stock with a shorter remaining life than what you already hold, FIFO is the wrong rule.

What a daily expiry digest is actually for

Not for finding what has already expired — that is an audit, and it is too late. It is for seeing what will expire while you still have time to move it: a discount, a transfer to a busier branch, a return to the supplier where the terms allow it.

The window that matters depends on how fast the line moves. A batch with 60 days of life and 90 days of cover at the current rate of sale is already a write-off; the digest should be telling you that in March, not in June. That comparison — remaining shelf life against months of cover — is the one number worth putting in front of a pharmacist every morning.

And it is the same record the inspector wants

A batch-level record that can answer "which batch did this customer receive, and when did it arrive" is a recall record. If you are already holding batch and expiry against every movement for stock control reasons, traceability is a report rather than a project.