Rationale 1.4

Traceability plays a crucial role in seafood sustainability certification as it ensures that claims are properly transferred through the supply chain to the end consumer.

As one of the most internationally traded commodities – often through complex supply chains – seafood is highly vulnerable to food fraud, especially product mislabelling, species substitution and provenance misrepresentation77Lawrence, S. J., Elliott, C., Huisman, W., Dean, M., & van Ruth, S. (2022). The 11 sins of seafood: Assessing a decade of food fraud reports in the global supply chain. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, 21, 3746–3769. https://doi.org/10.1111/1541-4337.12998.

This Criterion focuses on ASC-certified products being correctly differentiated from non-ASC-certified products, and traceability systems being in place on ASC-certified farms to maintain the integrity of products traded and sold under the ASC label.

Intent – The aquaculture industry supplies food that is traceable through the supply chain.