There is no single legal period; which one applies depends on the product. For quick-frozen food, Turkish Food Codex Communiqué 2014/48 requires temperature records to be kept at least one year, longer where the product's nature and shelf life call for it. For medicinal products, the TİTCK GDP Guide requires pharmaceutical wholesalers to keep records and backed-up data at least five years.
| Source | Retention |
|---|---|
| Quick-frozen food, Communiqué 2014/48 Article 4 | At least 1 year, longer if shelf life requires |
| Medicinal products, GDP Guide section 5.3 | At least 5 years |
| Retail chain or corporate buyer | The period written in the contract |
| Export | The rule of the destination country |
Shelf life matters here: for a frozen product with an eighteen-month shelf life, a one-year archive runs out while the product is still on the shelf. If a complaint arrives in those months, there is no record left to show the transport conditions. So the periods in the table are set side by side, the longest is chosen and written into the procedure together with its source. Printing the period at the foot of every form in use also helps, because the person filling it in and the person filing it see the same information.
Keeping a record means keeping it readable. The backup sits in a separate place, the file format still opens years later, each record shows which shipment it belongs to, and old data is migrated when a device or software changes. The decision taken when an excursion occurred is stored beside the temperature chart, since what an inspection asks for is usually the decision made that day, not the chart.