Saving Seafood

Northern Wind finalizes Legit Fish partnership, launching traceable scallops

November 18, 2021 — New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Northern Wind has announced a new partnership with Legit Fish that will enable the company to provide full-chain traceability for all of its domestically caught, Northern Atlantic scallops.

Starting Wednesday, 17 November, every case of Northern Wind scallops sourced from the Northeast U.S. scallop fishery will have third-party traceability of the products origin, harvest area, and landing-date – verifiable to government harvest records. Foodservice operators and consumers will be able to scan a QR code on the package to access information on the products, the company said.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Legit Fish partners with Mission Driven Meat & Seafood, hires new staff

August 25, 2021 — Legit Fish is partnering with Mission Driven Meat & Seafood and Big Easy Foods as the company continues to expand the species covered by its full-chain traceability program.

Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based traceability company Legit Fish first launched its new traceability technology at Seafood Expo North America in 2019, and went on to work with ButcherBox to provide fully traceable sea scallops to e-commerce customers. In its latest partnership with Big Easy Foods and Mission Driven Meat and Seafood, the company is planning to offer fully traceable wild-caught Gulf of Mexico shrimp to e-commerce customers this summer.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

GAA partnering with Thai Union, Devi Seafoods on traceability data-sharing project

February 26, 2021 — The Global Aquaculture Alliance’s (GAA) Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certification program is collaborating with seafood companies Thai Union and Devi Seafoods – along with traceability firms Wholechain and Legit Fish – to promote traceability in supply chains.

Their partnership is developing real-time digital solutions that will facilitate direct transfer of data from BAP-certified facilities to BAP’s internal data systems to support tracing of products in companies’ supply chains. This integration program is expected to meet traceability data requirements from seafood companies, the marketplace, regulators, and BAP itself, BAP said in a statement.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US scallop company Northern Wind forges ahead with traceability tech

June 5, 2020 — Scallop producer Northern Wind is partnering with fellow Massachusetts company Legit Fish to make its products traceable to the source.

The technology provided by Legit Fish, which the company is making available to any interested foodservice and retail customers, will track Northern Wind’s product supply chain from its vessel to the processor.

Northern Wind’s Co-CEO George Kouri told IntraFish the technology has been more than a year in the making, and is customized for the seafood business.

“We now believe as things begin to open up, and we’re in the early stages of the new scallop season, that now is the time to make this announcement,” he said.

Read the full story at IntraFish

Northern Wind, Legit Fish announce partnership

May 28, 2020 — New Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based Northern Wind announced 27 May the company has formed a new partnership with Legit Fish, a Boston, Massachusetts-based tech company focusing on seafood traceability.

According to a release from the company, the partnership has been in the works for more than a year, with Northern Wind Chairman Ken Melanson and CEO George Kouri working to “fine-tune the traceability and scalability” of the technology. The new technology will allow Northern Wind to have full traceability of scallops the company sells, including origin, landing date, harvest area, and sustainability profiles.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Legit Fish planning strategic partnership with Thermagenix’s Fast Fish ID

January 24, 2020 — Legit Fish, a Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based company offering traceability and ERP solutions for the seafood industry, is planning a strategic partnership with Thermagenix – a company that has invented a fast DNA test system for seafood.

The partnership, according to Legit Fish founder and CEO Michael Carroll, will increase the already rigorous traceability the company’s system has by adding on a biological component. The goal is to have the same traceability software that tracks species, gear type, amount, catch location, and more include the additional information that’s more quickly obtained by Thermagenix’s

Read the full story at Seafood Source

E-commerce protein provider ButcherBox offers new traceable wild-caught sea scallops with help from Legit Fish

September 3, 2019 — Michael Billings – who heads procurement for the Boston, Massachusetts-based protein delivery company ButcherBox – couldn’t remember exactly what compelled him to call longtime colleague Michael Carroll, the fisheries economist who founded software firm Legit Fish, a while back. Nevertheless, he’s glad he did.

“I don’t even know why, but I just picked up the phone and called [Carroll],” Billings told SeafoodSource, recalling the origin story behind the trailblazing partnership between ButcherBox and Legit Fish, which was christened last month with the launch of fully-traceable, wild-caught sea scallops on ButcherBox’s e-commerce platform.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Legit Fish launches traceability software

March 18, 2019 — Legit Fish, a Boston, Massachusetts-based traceability company, is launching a new traceability technology at Seafood Expo North America.

The company, which has partnered with the BASE Auction Company, is unveiling its new tool on 17 March at their SENA19 booth, 289. According to a release from the company, the system will enable vessels to “hail quantities into the auction that can be sold via a real-time cloud-based platform, with transactions clearing simultaneously in milliseconds.”

“Increasing stories around seafood fraud are eroding consumer trust; we’re seeing repetitive cases where seafood is claimed to be from local waters when it is in fact imported,” Michael Carroll, CEO of Legit Fish, said in a release. “The technology we are bringing to the market changes all of that because our traceability system is verified with the official government harvest records. No one else is doing this.”

According to Legit Fish, the software will be able to trace seafood from the dock to the dinner table utilizing cloud-based software that creates chain of custody control, ensuring that the products are traceable throughout their journey.

The debut of the new technology comes just over a week after Oceana released a study showing mislabeling of species is continuing to be a problem. That situation is what Legit Fish is attempting to eradicate, said Carroll.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Legit Fish to Launch Technology That Traces Origin of Seafood

March 16, 2019 — The following was released by Legit Fish:

Legit Fish, provider of a first-of-its-kind seafood traceability technology, is launching its application this weekend that allows an unprecedented level of transparency for consumers while ensuring a seafood’s origin actually matches its packaging. Legit Fish will unveil its new tool at the Seafood Expo North America in Boston on Sunday, March 17th, 2019 at booth 289.

“Increasing stories around seafood fraud are eroding consumer trust; we’re seeing repetitive cases where seafood is claimed to be from local waters when it is in fact imported,” said Michael Carroll, CEO of Legit Fish. “The technology we are bringing to the market changes all of that because our traceability system is verified with the official government harvest records. No one else is doing this.”

Legit Fish is already partnering with the BASE Auction Company, helping it launch the most technologically advanced logistics and auction system in the world with its Groundfish and Sea Scallop business. The system enables vessels to hail quantities into the auction that can be sold via a real-time cloud-based platform, with transactions clearing simultaneously in milliseconds. BASE runs its auctions in two of the most treasured fishing ports in the United States; New Bedford, MA, the most economically significant, and in Gloucester, MA, the country’s oldest.

The traceability software of Legit Fish (www.legitfishinc.com) is able to track seafood from the dock to the dinner table, offering confidence for buyers and leveling the playing field for vessel owners, assuring them that when their product travels down the supply chain, it can’t be substituted with inferior product, and with that, a lower price. Legit Fish does this through a cloud-based software that provides a binding chain of custody control that ensures the product featured meets the claim on the package.

The traceability technology comes at a time when the industry is coming under fire about its truthfulness in packaging. Just last week, the conservation group Oceana put out a report that found 1 in every 3 businesses sold at least one kind of seafood that wasn’t labeled properly, with Snapper (42%) and Sea Bass (55%) having the highest samples that were fraudulent. And a recent investigation by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office found “more than one in four” seafood purchases were mislabeled and “about two-thirds” of the supermarket chains reviewed had at least one instance of mislabeling.

“This type of rigorous trace application will offer domestic fisheries a tool to ensure their products are not being knocked off in the marketplace by imported or even farmed goods,” says Carroll. “Currently there is no other scalable traceability tool that concretely verifies seafood products against the government harvest records.”

When fully implemented, the data offered by Legit Fish can be accessed by seafood retailers, processors, dealers and consumers with the scan of a QR code that provides not only the port where the fish originated, but its species, location, landing dates, and the vessel it came off of.

With this in mind, Legit Fish is attracting interest from discerning retailers who want better assurance and controls over the origin of their products; Legit Fish has already forged a number of partnerships in the industry and is currently rolling out its technology with a retailer.

“We will change the way the seafood industry does business,” said Carroll. “The Legit Fish technology will substantially increase transparency that will benefit both the fisherman and the consumer.”

For more information, please contact:

Michael Carroll

Legit Fish

617-640-8126 (cell)

mike@legitfishinc.com

 

Legit Fish is Adding Validity to a Peculiar Part of the Seafood Industry

March 14, 2018 — Certain entrepreneurs have an interest in a particular topic or industry that serves as an underlying theme to their career.

Taking a look at the career of Legit Fish Founder and CEO Michael Carroll, you will see he has been involved with the seafood industry for nearly 30 years. Carroll has worked as a commercial fisherman, in various marketing roles selling cod and haddock to grocery stores, and as a business consultant for seafood-companies.

And now, he is the founder of a seafood-focused tech startup in a city both catered to tech and seafood.

Legit Fish provides an administrative and tracking platform for seafood offloaders and independent fisherman to certify and market their fish as local. The software application replaces the current paper and Excel logistics systems with a cohesive cloud-based system that offers a scalable and unmatched level of traceability in the seafood industry.

The seafood offloader simply inputs the vessel, species, sizes, and relevant harvest information which is automatically transmitted to federal harvest records, inventory, sales, accounting etc. substantially reducing labor and transaction efficiencies. The application verifies the accuracy of the product information against the official government harvest record through proprietary API access and approves the printing of labels.

“Our software is built for traceability and logistics. If you lie on a federal harvest record, there are consequences, therefore we ground our product origin claims on this record. It’s up to us to make sure that the seafood distributors are honest, while still trying to be a business solution,” Carroll said. “With our current business partners, we can authenticate landings in Boston, New Bedford and Gloucester which represents an estimated 70% of the New England Groundfish Fishery and 30% of Atlantic Sea Scallops Fishery.”

Read the full story at VentureFizz