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Traceability



By courtesy of Dr. S. Bergleiter, Naturland e.V.

By Hector Lupin, FAO
April 2006

INTRODUCTION

Traceability is not new to the fish and food industry. Fresh fish is a highly perishable product and traceability systems have been utilized systematically in the fishery industry. The traceability concept has also been included, explicitly or implicitly, for food safety purposes in several fish and fish product regulations for many years, in particular since the introduction of HACCP-based regulations.
External traceability systems for food chains have been developed during recent decades and introduced world wide. In the case of fisheries they are a result of the expansion of international fish trade and, more recently, the growth of fish retailing in food supermarket chains. External traceability, refers to systems aimed to allow the traceability of a product and/or attribute(s) of that product through the successive stages of the distribution chain (boat/fish-farm to table).
Internal traceability refers to the traceability of raw materials, intermediate and final products within a productive or commercial unit (e.g. within a fish plant). Internal traceability systems are also aimed at productivity improvement and cost reduction.
“Traceability” can be related to regulatory requirements, implemented on a voluntary basis or be commercial in nature. As a result, the word “traceability” is associated with an increasing number of purposes and objectives, with reference to different attributes (or information) to be traced, as well as to different standards to encode and recover information.
Not all “traceability” systems are equivalent and/or interchangeable. Nor can they necessarily be consolidated. Different purposes and systems also trigger different expectations in producers and consumers that do not always correspond to the traceability system in use (regulatory, contractual or voluntary). This partially explains the current uncertainty related to “traceability” requirements and to the possible implications of traceability regulations. Table 1 presents the most common traceability systems. The Table includes purposes and objectives, and presents some examples.