Tracking things is important.

We track our deliveries, luggage and phones. But when it comes to tracking where our seafood comes from, it isn’t as easy as slapping an AirTag on a salmon.

And tracking that seafood is vital not only to economies but human rights and environmental health.

The seafood industry in 2023 was valued at over U.S.$236 billion so the economic impact of large theft can devastate a developing country. Not only to the income of seafood exports, but also those who rely on the ocean for food, such as the people of Argentina.

According to a 2021 study from the Financial Transparency Coalition — a company dedicated to transparency in financial and tax systems — Argentina’s waters are plagued with illegal operators. An estimated 500 vessels are illegally fishing in its waters, and Argentina doesn’t don’t have the resources to police it. This equals U.S.$2 billion to $3 billion annually in losses for the country.

RELATED: Why traceability matters: Tech charts a course for sustainability

Globally the annual economic impact is between U.S.$10 billion and $36.4 billion.

Illegal actions might be vessels operating in sovereign territorial waters without permission or a vessel that is legally flying that state’s flag but not operating within its laws.

Unreported fishing constitutes not only failure to report but misreporting catch volume. Unregulated fishing is any fishing activity outside of conservation regulations or where there may not be regulations in place, but activity is carried out against international regulations that protect not just economies but ocean health.

Nature Middle East reports that fish off Egypt’s 1,000-kilometer coast stretching from Palestine to Libya are dangerously overexploited, threatening the health of all marine life in the Mediterranean. Despite making up just 0.8 percent of the world’s oceans, the Mediterranean contains 4 to 18 percent of known marine species.

Myriam Khalfallah, who led the study for the Sea Around Us initiative at the Canadian University of British Columbia and the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport in Egypt, recommends urgent action to better regulate and monitor fishing activity.

Another issue that puts illegal fishing at the forefront is mislabeling. Mislabeling can take place at any point in the supply chain and can be deliberate or unintentional, which makes it harder to trace. Mislabeled information might be anything from seafood species to product origin. This contributes to health risks for the 6.6 million Americans with seafood allergies.

And because mislabeling can obscure the origin of the product, it makes tracking forced labor difficult. Intentional mislabeling often masks illegal fishing.

“Up to 70 percent of the seafood export market is in developing countries. In seafood hubs such as Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Peru, slavery and child labor within the seafood industry are widespread. With the global demand for seafood consistently increasing, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing has ensued in slavery and human trafficked labor,” according to a 2022 study published by PeerJ Life & Environment.

With so much money to be made from illegal fishing, how do we make sure the fish was sourced sustainably, isn’t mislabeled or wasn’t acquired via forced labor? It comes down to data and doing the right thing.

Know
your fish

The idea of tracing seafood to ensure regulations are followed isn’t new. Its beginnings were paper-based, then digital. Now technology allows for tracing seafood throughout the supply chain and offers peace of mind to consumers that the fish they’re eating was sourced legally, ethically and inline with sustainable practices.

Regulated companies know the journey their product has been on, from ocean to plate, and can share that information with you.

A 2021 initiative by five of the world’s largest seafood companies called for global regulation and the industry to jump on board. The United States Food and Drug Administration put this call into action with its Final Traceability Rule, taking effect in January 2026. This requires entities that manage food, anywhere along the supply chain, to provide additional traceability information to those regulations already in existence.

How does
it work?

One company assisting the seafood industry with traceability is U.S.-based BlueTrace, which offers simple solutions that all but eliminate error along the fishy journey.

It begins at the point of catch and concludes with a consumer. In between, our fish might encounter primary and secondary processors, traders, wholesalers, dealers, distributors and transporters.

The system includes software that can be operated from a mobile phone or tablet in conjunction with an industrial printer that prints spreadsheets, logs and labels on waterproof paper.

Their solutions can be implemented in a matter of days, require zero consultancy and are simple enough for employees to use with minimal training.

Labels and tags are equipped with QR codes that receivers, dealers and buyers can scan for details. Users can also request a PDF that can assist with harvest financial reporting documentation and can be sent on to the receiving end of a shipment to let customers know it’s coming.

Bonus: All data passed through the app is stored in the cloud.

Chip Terry, CEO of BlueTrace, says, “Our mission is to simplify the seafood industry. The seafood industry has been around forever, and it does a lot of things well, but they are drowning in redundant paperwork. The lack of visibility into their operations makes it hard for them to scale. Ninety percent of the seafood industry is small to midsize businesses that simply lack reasonably priced tools to do their jobs effectively.”

Though the system was designed for shellfish dealers, BlueTrace’s over 470 clients use the software to track inventory of species including swordfish, seaweed, groundfish, imported tuna, shrimp and many more.

The end of the complicated fish journey might be the salmon en croute you just ordered on your date night. So, the next time you order fish, have a look on the table or menu for a QR code — the story of your dinner might serve as a great conversation starter.

The seafood industry is wracked with illegal, unreported and unregulated activity. Dubai’s Seafood Souq thinks technology can help.

“We build tools for fishers, aquaculture farms, distributors and retailers to ensure that seafood products are transparent in their source and tracking across the value chain,” says Fahim Al Qasimi, the company’s co-founder and CIO.

The Seafood Souq aims to digitize the seafood industry to ensure responsible trade and procurement from the point of catch to the end consumer using its traceability technology, SFS Trace.

It all begins with data at the source or point of catch. Harvesters use mobile applications to log a catch. The log data includes species, quantity, location and time.

Comparable tools are used in fish farms but SFS includes the lifecycle of the fish — data like what the fish has been fed, health treatments and environmental conditions.

Fisheries and ship operators use SFS technology to manage their fleets for compliance documentation, ensuring they meet the regulatory and sustainability standards of Global Dialogue and Seafood Traceability — a non-profit organization partnership between the World Wildlife Fund and the Institute of Food Technologists.

The trace audit component of SFS Trace compiles and scores products based on compliance with the organization. It reviews the data ensuring every stop along the supply chain is substantiated, from catch to consumer. This is possible because each event in processing, packaging and transportation is captured and stored. Data transmission between systems is secured by Electronic Product Code Information Services.

The company is working with local and international partners to achieve transparency and improve operations, including developing and implementing a digital logbook for South African tuna fisheries.

Closer to home, Seafood Souq is working with Jumeirah Hotels in Dubai to show guests via QR code where their seafood originated and how it came to land on their plate.

UAE supermarkets and caterers are also using the SFS Traceability Audit tool to ensure quality and compliance with the country’s sustainability goals.

What’s next for the Seafood Souq?

The company is in discussions for pilot logbook tools with UAE fishers. “It is an opportunity for NGOs, the government and the private sector to contribute to more transparency and the protection of fishers’ livelihoods. Conversations with regulators, fishers and the procurers of seafood need to continue to ensure the effective implementation of this project, and Seafood Souq is proud to be the convenor (and digital infrastructure) behind these conversations,” Al Qasmi tells KUST Review.