BOSTON — March 13, 2013 — A seafood fraud bill reintroduced to the House of Representatives by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) this month could affect retailers with the imposition of new traceability requirements for fish.
The Safety and Fraud Enforcement (SAFE) for Seafood Act, originally submitted in July 2012, would require information currently collected from U.S. fishermen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — like species, where the fish was caught and what gear was used — to “follow the fish” up through the supply chain until reaching the consumer, with similar documentation required for imported fish.
Matthew Strickler, a member of Markey’s staff and one of the bill’s authors, presented the basics of the bill and discussed some of its implications during a panel discussion on seafood mislabeling at the International Boston Seafood Show on March 10.
“We're not telling anyone in the supply chain how they have to do this [traceability requirement]. It’s just this information needs to go through the chain. You can do it with something like Gulf [Seafood] Trace. You can do it with your own system that logs information electronically. You can do it with a piece of paper, for all we care, whatever floats your boat,” said Strickler, as long as the information is available to the consumer.
Strickler said he had had conversations with fishermen, industry representatives and nonprofit groups to see “how we could kind of skin this cat a different way and put in place some legislation that dealt with the problem without being too burdensome on the industry.”
The bill would ensure that those who engage in seafood mislabeling would be punished while helping honest retailers, said Strickler.