The challenge of naming every fish in the sea

The project

The general objective of SEATRACES is to demonstrate to stakeholders and consumers that Labelling and Traceability are essential to protect and valorize Atlantic Area’s fisheries and aquaculture.

Illegal fisheries, fraud and mislabelling are the main issues representing a serious risk to the existence of this important economic activity for the Atlantic Area Regions.

The main actors — producers, industry, markets and consumers — should be aware of the threat and the available tools which will empower them to adopt a responsible attitude towards the production, marketing and buying of seafood.

The Challenge

The maritime dimension characterizes Atlantic Area regions and the fact that their economies rely significantly in marine resources ⁽¹⁾ illustrates this feature. However, some of these regions exhibit low innovation levels, especially in sectors, like seafood production, which also show the greatest potential for growth ⁽²⁾. This could be significantly boosted with the implementation of tools for differentiating their high-quality products.

SEATRACES challenge is to demonstrate that implementing these tools in Atlantic Area regions will foster competitiveness of the sector.
Two areas of the seafood sector have been selected for demonstration: Bivalve Culture (69% of EU production) ⁽¹⁾ and Artisanal fisheries ⁽³⁾, both pillars of Blue Growth in these regions.

In Atlantic Area regions, more than 90% of businesses from both sectors are SMEs, threatened by their low innovation and a growing market from outside EU.

⁽¹⁾ Facts and Figures Common Fisheries Policy, 2016
⁽²⁾ Strategic Environmental Assessment of transnational Cooperation Programme of the Atlantic Area for the programming period 2014-2020 (June 2014)
⁽³⁾ García-Flórez et al. (2014). A novel and simple approach to define artisanal fisheries in Europe, Marine Policy. 44 152-159

Traceability & Labelling are tools contributing to guarantee the identity of seafood

Previous Labelfish findings

SEATRACES builds upon the previous LABELFISH.

LABELFISH detected some seafood traceability and labelling issues in Atlantic Area:

Mislabelling

names

Control Tools

Transparency

Mislabelling rate (4.93%) in important seafood products in six European countries

Importance of specific commercial names for fighting fraud

Lack of harmonized control tools for the authentication of fish species and consumers’ awareness

Difficulties of industry to implement full traceability and importance to have transparent traceability and labelling systems

The Objectives

Based on these findings, SEATRACES will:

Develop Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs) for species identification of mollusc and crustaceans, improve the robustness of tuna identification tools, explore “portable” diagnostic methods and mixed-product analysis

Develop new tools to address the harmonized control of other information required by EC1379/2013 (i.e. geographic origin, wild versus farmed, frozen & thawed fish, etc.)

Provide official labs with standard methods through a virtual reference center (FISHFIT) to combat fraud.

Involve consumers to plan strategies and tools to overcome the weakness on Seafood Traceability and Labelling through transnational workshops

Opening of new communication channels with industry to discuss about Seafood Traceability and Labelling and reach a consensus to develop an effective strategy

Involve stakeholders to use Information & Communication Technologies systems for Seafood Traceability and Labelling. Demonstration of its impact through socioeconomic studies.

SOPs

Tools

Standarisation

CONSUMERS

Industry

ICTs

Seafood labels

Regulation (EU) No. 1379/2013
Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011
SEATRACES will develop new standard methods to control the veracity of some of the information required in Regulation (EU) No. 1379/2013
Commercial and Scientific Names using DNA methods
Production method
Geographic origin (in some particular cases)