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Working towards full traceability through collaboration and partnership

From 9am to 12pm MarinTrust will hold a Full Traceability Workshop on the 24th October 2022 in Lima, Peru, prior to the start of the annual IFFO - The Marine Ingredients Organisation Conference.  Traceability is the ability to fully trace a product from the point of sale back to its point of origin, with information available about all transactions and movements in between.

But why is this so important? The answer is that traceability is vital for food safety, to prove legality and to verify responsible sourcing. With seafood the most globally traded food commodity, all three aspects are vital, yet until the formation of the Global Dialogue for Seafood Traceability (GDST) in 2017, there were no international standards related to documentation and record keeping nor to tracking protocols that are relevant to the seafood sector.

The pre-competitive Dialogue aimed to produce an aligned global framework for seafood traceability based on four pillars:

1. Internationally agreed key data elements (KDEs) to be routinely associated with seafood products
2. Technical specifications for interoperable traceability systems, along with standard legal and business formats facilitating business-to-business information exchange
3. Internationally agreed on benchmarks for verifying data validity
4. Harmonisation of business-smart national regulations to help reduce compliance burdens

Subsequently GDST Standards have been developed and are now adopted by more than 80 leading international seafood companies, who have stated their intent to implement these standards over time and recommend their widespread adoption and implementation by the entire seafood industry globally. They have also been endorsed by global initiatives and standards, most recently MarinTrust, as the new MarinTrust Chain of Custody (CoC) standard follows GDST standards and materials enhancing the traceability of marine ingredients in value chains. However, success towards full traceability requires collaboration between supply chain actors and a greater understanding of how and why traceability can be achieved. 

The side-event held by MarinTrust immediately prior to the start of the annual IFFO Conference will this year focus on the path towards full traceability, with presentations from feed producer Vitapro SA and MarinTrust Certificate Holder Pesquera Centinela SAC that have recently undertaken pilots with MarinTrust to implement GDST. They will highlight how innovative traceability has worked for them and why it is important, with additional talks on the importance of traceability from Francisco Aldon CEO of MarinTrust and a global perspective from GDST’s General Secretariat Frank Terzoli. A Q&A with the panel of speakers will enable active participation of audience members. To finish the event and highlight the benefits of collaboration, Eva van Heukelom, Partnership Manager at the Global Seafood Sustainability Initiative (GSSI) will introduce their programme, highlight the benefits of collaboration and the forthcoming recognition of GSSI by MarinTrust.

Programme 

Location: Salon Cusco 2 (Level 4)

Please register by sending an email to [email protected]

The event will take place in Salon Cusco 2 at the Westin Lima Hotel & Convention Center,
Calle Las Begonias 450, San Isidro, Lima  27, Perú