July 30, 2021 — The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for a digital transformation in seafood, according to ThisFish Inc. Co-Founder and CEO Eric Enno Tamm.
The seafood industry is lagging behind other industries in its embrace of digitization and move toward greater transparency in supply chains, Tamm said, and it must embrace the opportunity provided by the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic to reorganize itself.
July 16, 2021 — Leif Anderson is the director of sales and services for Kirkland, Washington, U.S.A.-based Dynamic Systems Inc. He spoke with SeafoodSource about the company’s SIMBA traceability and barcode labeling software, its use in the seafood sector, and the trend for industry standards.
SeafoodSource: You have noted increased demand for traceability products from the seafood sector. Is that demand coming from a requirement from the government to be able to do recalls, or other factors?
Anderson: Recalls are part of it, but with sustainability, it’s also about making sure companies aren’t fraudulently substituting one whitefish for another. So, it’s all those elements of traceability. It’s knowing where your food came from for a recall if there’s a need for that, but it’s also the sustainability, it’s reducing fraud and/or overfishing in certain areas. So, there’s lots of different things that drive companies to look at products like ours.
June 24, 2021 — A recent seafood industry traceability pilot study conducted by GS1 US supports the value of universal standards to help seafood companies efficiently and effectively exchange supply chain data and improve end-to-end visibility.
The study was conducted in collaboration with the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST), the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), Beaver Street Fisheries, Bumble Bee Seafoods, Chicken of the Sea, FoodLogiQ, IBM Food Trust, Insite Solutions/Norpac, ripe.io, SAP, Walmart, and Wholechain. It follows a similar 2020 prototype that confirmed traceability solutions from FoodLogiQ, IBM Food Trust, ripe.io and SAP can operate, transmit, and exchange product data throughout a supply chain when GS1 Standards are applied.
May 11, 2021 — MarinTrust, the global marine ingredient standard for responsible supply (formerly IFFO RS), released updated guidance on 10 May for its Chain of Custody (CoC) Version 2 standard, which became effective as of 30 November, 2020.
In a press release, MarinTrust said it was extending the transition period “set up to help certification bodies as well as all facilities certified under the former version (known as v1.1), understand how the revised MarinTrust Chain of Custody Standard would affect their business.”
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.
February 19, 2021 — Stop & Shop will increase the transparency of the seafood it purchases via a new partnership with the Ocean Disclosure Project.
The Quincy, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based retailer, owned by Ahold Delhaize, will voluntarily report its seafood sourcing on ODP’s website – and will soon add the information to Stop & Shop’s website, a spokesperson for the retailer told SeafoodSource.
December 14, 2020 — A new white paper commissioned by Global Seafood Assurances (GSA) is offering a comprehensive look at the tools and resources that exist to ensure social welfare on board the world’s fishing vessels.
The paper, Worker Voice on Fishing Vessels, documents the initiatives, organizations, and projects available around the world that offer fishing crews a means to voice concerns, have influence over matters that affect them in the workplace, and have access to third party advice and grievance mechanisms for remediation. It also identifies common definitions and terms used to describe these concepts.
November 4, 2020 — Traceable and reliable seafood is crucial in helping businesses and stakeholders across the seafood sector retain their competitive edge in today’s industry. Companies participating in the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST) – and the committee of seafood stakeholders steering it – know this well.
Launched in April 2017, GDST was established as a business-to-business forum with the core mandate of crafting a set of industry-wide traceability standards for seafood that would both enable interoperability as well as increase verifiability of products across sector systems.
March 19, 2020 — Seafood companies across the tuna supply chain are making strides toward meeting the four commitments that are part of the Tuna 2020 Traceability Declaration.
The Global Tuna Alliance – a consortium of companies seeking to improve the tuna supply chain – surveyed the 66 companies that signed the declaration in 2017 to assess their progress, compiling the results in a report to be released soon. About two-thirds of companies responded.
March 17, 2020 — Dozens of methods of documenting seafood traceability – and hundreds of individual systems – have emerged in recent years as companies across the seafood supply chain and the technology vendors that serve them seek to demonstrate the sustainable, legal origins of their products.
Rarely can those systems seamlessly interact with each other or share data, a gap that poses an ever-larger problem as regulators draft new traceability laws and consumers demand more information about the origin of their food.