Services / Lot, expiry + rotation control
For dated stock, rotation order and lot traceability are the whole game.
For supplements, food, beauty, and any product with an expiry date, arrival order and expiry order are two different things, and a recall is only as clean as your lot data. Fulfillment.com is a third-party logistics provider for dated goods. We handle receiving, storage, and shipping on our own facilities, with our own team, under one operator.
What it is
Expiry-aware control for dated and regulated goods
If your product has an expiry date, shipping by arrival order is not good enough. A unit that arrived later can expire sooner, and a short-dated unit that reaches a customer is a return, a complaint, or worse.
Lot, expiry, and FEFO control (first-expired, first-out) is the discipline that keeps dated stock moving in the right order and keeps every unit traceable back to the batch it came from. It has four parts: log the lot at receiving, rotate by expiry instead of arrival, keep near-expiry stock out of outbound orders, and be able to isolate exactly the affected lot when something has to come back. Skip any one of those and the other three lose most of their value: a lot you can't trace to receiving can't be recalled cleanly, and a rotation rule that ignores expiry doesn't actually solve the problem FEFO exists for.
Keeping that chain intact takes running all four steps under one roof, since each handoff between a separate prep vendor, a storage provider, and your own warehouse is a place lot data or the rotation rule would otherwise need to be re-established. Our own facilities and our own team run receiving, storage, and shipping for dated goods together, which is the structural condition for keeping that chain intact. What your specific SKUs and shelf-life profile need is a conversation to have when you scope the account.
How it works
Four mechanics, from the dock to the recall
Lot capture, expiration-based rotation, near-expiry blocking, and recall isolation are four connected steps. Deposco, the warehouse system behind BestOMS, is where we run that data.
Why lot capture belongs at receiving
Receiving is the one point every case has to pass through before it disperses across a pick face, which is why lot and expiry data get logged there rather than later. Capture it after putaway and you're reconstructing lot history from picking records instead of reading it off the dock. On our stack that data lives in Deposco, the warehouse system behind BestOMS.
What rotating by expiration date actually changes
FEFO (first-expired, first-out) rotates by expiry date instead of arrival date. For dated goods the two orders diverge constantly: a case that arrived last month can carry a shorter shelf life than one that's been sitting for a year. A system tuned for FEFO has to check expiry at the pick, not just shelf position. First-in, first-out (FIFO) rotates by arrival date and is the right rule for plenty of products; we run either one, and the choice follows what you sell.
What a near-expiry threshold does
A near-expiry threshold is a cutoff you set (say, 60 or 90 days from expiry) below which a unit stops being pick-eligible and gets flagged for review instead. The threshold itself is a business decision: how much shelf life your customer's customer needs left on arrival. The warehouse system's job is to hold that line at the pick.
Why lot linkage is what makes a recall targeted
A recall is only as precise as the data connecting a lot number to the orders it shipped in. Without that link, a recall means sweeping your entire position; with it, the pull can be scoped to the specific lot, and the rest of your inventory stays sellable.
A 3PL, not a manufacturer
A 3PL, a third-party logistics provider that handles finished sealed product, is structurally not the party that formulates it or sets its expiry date; that decision sits with you and your manufacturer, upstream of anything a warehouse does. Our job starts once the lot and expiry date already exist: receive the goods, read what's on the case, and run storage and shipping against that data.
116+
Integrations
Order + inventory data flowing in
99.84%
Same-day ship rate
Figures as of June 2026.
Category requirement, not a standard offering
Capabilities worth checking for beyond this category
Lot capture, expiration-based rotation, near-expiry blocking, and recall-ready lot isolation are what this page describes as a category. Exactly how they're configured for your product is worked out with you when you scope the account. A couple of related capabilities go further, and they're genuinely worth knowing about when you're evaluating a 3PL for dated or regulated goods, even though they aren't part of what the network runs as a standard service today:
- Hazmat and regulated-goods handling
- Specific certifications: cGMP (current Good Manufacturing Practice) audit status, FDA food-facility registration, and GFSI schemes (for example BRC or SQF)
That's not a permanent line: a program that genuinely needs one of these should raise it, and we'll be straight about what it would take.
Where it connects
The platform, the inbound leg, and the products it applies to
Lot and rotation data lives on the platform and starts at receiving. Here is where it connects across the catalog.
The platform lot and rotation logic runs on
Deposco is the warehouse system behind BestOMS, the platform where lot, expiry, and rotation logic for dated goods lives.
Receiving + inbound
Lot and expiry data start at receiving, before a unit reaches a pick face: the inbound step that has to happen first for anything downstream to be traceable.
Supplements & vitamins
Dated, often-regulated consumables where expiry order and arrival order rarely match, and where a scoped recall matters most.
Pet products
Dated pet consumables and treats carry the same expiry and lot-tracking questions as human food and supplement products.
Back to the full service catalog.
Questions about lot, expiry, and rotation control
What is FEFO, and how is it different from FIFO?
FEFO is first-expired, first-out: the unit closest to its expiry date ships first. FIFO (first-in, first-out) rotates by arrival date instead. For dated goods the two orders diverge often: a case that arrived recently can still carry a shorter shelf life than one that's been in storage for months, depending on when it was produced. A rotation rule that only tracks arrival will miss that; one built for FEFO checks expiry at the pick. We run both, so the rule follows the product rather than the warehouse.
When is the lot number captured?
The standard practice for dated goods is to capture lot and expiry at receiving, before the unit reaches a pick face, so the traceability chain has a starting point at the dock rather than a gap to reconstruct later. On our stack, Deposco, the warehouse system behind BestOMS, is where that data is recorded.
What happens to stock that is close to expiry?
You set a near-expiry threshold for your product: how much shelf life needs to remain when it ships. A unit inside that window is treated differently from the rest of your stock, flagged instead of shipped on the default rule. What that threshold should be depends on your product and what your retailers or customers require on arrival, which is a conversation worth having when you scope the account.
How does a recall work?
A recall's precision depends entirely on whether lot data is linked to the orders it shipped in. With that link, a pull can be scoped to the affected lot; without it, the only safe move is sweeping the whole position. The decision to recall, and the scope, comes from you and the manufacturer (often working with FDA or another regulator); the warehouse's role is executing the pull against the lot list it's given.
Does Fulfillment.com handle hazmat or regulated-goods storage, or hold specific certifications?
Hazmat and regulated-goods handling, and specific certifications (for example cGMP audit status, FDA food-facility registration, and GFSI schemes), matter for products where a regulator or a retailer requires them, and they're worth checking for before you commit to a 3PL. Certifications and hazmat handling aren't part of what the network runs as a standard service today, though that isn't a permanent line: a program that needs one should raise it, and we'll be straight with you about what it would take.
Does Fulfillment.com set or change the expiry date?
No. We are a 3PL, not a manufacturer: we receive, store, and ship finished sealed product, and do not formulate the product or set its expiry date. The expiry date comes from you and your manufacturer; lot and rotation handling for dated goods is built into how the account is set up, and the specifics are confirmed with you at that stage.
Dated stock, controlled to the lot. Get a quote.
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