March 7, 2024 — The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a rule back in January 2023 on seafood traceability “requiring these entities [in the seafood supply chain] to maintain records containing information on critical tracking events in the supply chain for these designated foods, such as initially packing, shipping, receiving, and transforming these foods.” Seafood dealers and processors have until Jan. 20, 2026, to comply with the new rule, and tech developers around the world are working to develop the software and apps that will track almost all seafood from the boat to the table.
An important part of traceability will be the cost. “Traceability needs to be a byproduct of improved efficiency, rather than a tax on the industry” says Chip Terry, president of BlueTrace, a Maine-based software developer that started off creating tracking systems for oyster farmers, and is now expanding into other seafood supply chains.
Terry expresses concern that the new FDA rule will be harder for small-scale operations to comply with than for large, vertically-integrated seafood companies. “What we’re looking at are ‘key data events’, KDEs, and ‘critical tracking events’, CTEs. We identify data such as the date and time of landing, location, weights, vessel, and create a unique traceability lot code that follows that product through the CTEs.”
The CTEs largely represent the consolidation and transfer of various lots of seafood. “Oysters and other mollusks are exempt, since they are covered by the National Shellfish Sanitation Commission rules which resemble the new FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act) rules,” says Terry. “For various reasons, scallop adductor muscles, and catfish, are also excluded. Lobsters, crabs, squid, shrimp, fish and other seafood all fall under the new rule. A lot of the tracking is currently done by writing the information down on a clipboard. The challenge is that you have so many boats and locations, it’s hard to scale that up. When you put all that information into an app, it can be accessed by a company’s accounting department, shipping department, or shared with business partners and regulators. An easy-to-use system increases efficiency and creates the digital record that the FDA requires.”