Today’s consumers are increasingly aware of the origin and safety of food products.
To accommodate this, the European Community introduced on January 1 2010 a new regulation, IUU (illegal, unreported, unregulated), to prevent illegally harvested seafood into the EU.
All major seafood exporting countries have decided to implement the above requirement and have informed the EU accordingly.
All harvested seafood products now have to carry a label that guarantees they were obtained responsibly and without harming the marine medium. A catch certifi cate provided by the vessel operator or seafood exporter must accompany every shipment entering the EU, and has to be validated and countersigned by a government authority.
The implementation of a traceability process provides an array of benefits to the fi shing industry. These benefi ts include improved supply chain management, documentation of sustainable management practices and easier compliance with labelling laws.
MAREL – SUPERIOR IN FOOD TRACEABILITY
Traceability has been a major issue in the food industry for many years. Marel has vast experience and expertise with traceability from years of working with the subject, and is one of the major suppliers of traceability
and control systems specifically developed for the food industry.
Marel’s production control system, Innova is the perfect tool for data collection and monitoring. Innova covers the complete value chain in the production cycle from reception of supplies to product dispatch.
Systems vary in size and complexity, ranging from small packing stations to large plant set-ups. Traceability in the fish industry may start onboard the vessels registering information about the catch and location, then followed by in-weighing to the auction or processing plant. From there data capture at each process that the fish undergo can be registered and monitored all the way through order handling to dispatch.
With as little as one single Marel scale to weigh and register PO’s and an Innova packing module, every catch is documented and hence traceable in accordance with the requirements of the EU regulations.
