Botulism, Listeria, salmonella and horsemeat. The reasons behind food recalls may vary, but the reaction is always the same: Get that product off shelves fast.
Tracing a product’s journey to market is not always simple, especially in the seafood industry. A single fish might be carved into different product forms with separate supply-chain trajectories. The ability to track that fish is not just important; an increasing number of retailers are mandating third-party audits or food-safety certifications with traceability components.
For computer software companies that serve the seafood industry, traceability is inherent. When it comes down to it, traceability is made possible by two things: the database architecture and the data collected, explained Chris Reynolds of Edible Software in Houston.
Every product has a lot number assigned to it, so if there’s a problem that number will bring up all the other data required for tracking it. The company has expanded its data fields to include things relevant to seafood like method of catch, when a product was received as well as when it was ordered, fixed weight and catch weight.
“If a customer of a distributor or wholesaler were to call in and say there’s a problem with a product, the distributor can take that customer’s invoice and track all the way to the large lot and see who else got that product,” he said. “So if there is a real problem, they can then go to all those customers immediately.”
Click here to read the full story that ran in the May issue of SeaFood Business >
