For most of the past two decades, traceability sat in the operational equivalent of a regulatory filing cabinet. It was something companies did because they had to, with the minimum investment that would pass an audit. That posture is becoming financially indefensible.
A combination of tightening regulations, retailer pressure, and rising customer expectations has pushed item-level visibility from a back-office concern into something closer to commercial infrastructure. The businesses paying attention are starting to treat traceability less like a compliance burden and more like a margin lever. Aliya Pogorelskaya, founder and CEO of Altinteg Technology Solutions in Portugal, has been making that argument longer than most of her industry has been listening.
The Compliance-First Era Is Closing
The regulatory shift is the easiest part of the story to see. The U.S. FDA’s Food Traceability Rule, under FSMA Section 204, sets a compliance deadline of July 20, 2028, for businesses handling high-risk food categories. The rule requires item-level recordkeeping and the ability to produce traceability data within 24 hours of an agency request. The deadline was extended once already; Congress wrote the new date into law through the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2026, which means it will not move again. In parallel, the EU’s Digital Product Passport, established under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, is rolling out by product category between 2026 and 2030. Food is not in the first wave, but the regulatory direction is unambiguous.
What is more interesting is what is happening ahead of the regulations. Major retailers in North America and Europe have been moving on their own timelines, pushing item-level identification requirements upstream to their suppliers. The economics are starting to make the argument that the rulebook is only finishing. A supply chain with accurate visibility writes off less product, recovers from recalls faster, runs leaner inventory, and avoids the slow bleed of avoidable shrinkage.
“Traceability is no longer only a compliance topic; it is becoming a commercial, operational, and strategic advantage,” Pogorelskaya said.
What “Advantage” Actually Means
For a food producer, a working traceability system means inventory accuracy in the high nineties instead of the mid-sixties. It means a temperature excursion in transit becomes a real-time alert rather than a write-off three weeks later. It means a recall costs a defined batch rather than an entire category. It means a buyer asking about sustainability data has an answer that the supply chain can actually produce.
Pogorelskaya frames Altinteg’s role as building the operational scaffolding for those outcomes. The company’s Traceability as a Service offering delivers RFID hardware, smart labeling, data capture, software integration, and ongoing maintenance as a single managed system rather than a collection of parts the client has to wire together. Standards work sits underneath the offering: alignment with RAIN Alliance and GS1, and ongoing collaboration with European RFID labs and universities. From a base in Funchal, the company is active across Europe, Brazil, the United States, the Middle East, Africa, and Australia, handling the technical variation between regional RFID protocols and compliance frameworks as part of the service.
The Next Layer
Pogorelskaya is also building toward what she calls product intelligence — the next thing traceability becomes when it stops being about location alone. The company’s FreshInteg direction targets affordable freshness sensing for fast-moving consumer goods, with the aim of putting real-time condition data on individual items at a price point that works at FMCG volumes.
That ambition is consistent with how she described the wider opportunity. “Our focus is especially strong in food and other regulated product sectors, where better product identification can support compliance, waste reduction, shelf-life management, operational ROI, and stronger trust across the supply chain.”
The businesses that have been waiting for traceability to become someone else’s problem are running out of room. The ones that move first will not just be compliant. They will be ahead. Pogorelskaya is betting that the difference shows up on the income statement.
