New tool helps implement global industry standards on seafood traceability

Completeness Tool designed to help assess progress in implementing seafood traceability standards across the supply chain

The Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST), an international, business-to-business platform established in 2017 to create the first-ever global industry standards for seafood traceability, has launched a new tool to help implement standards for seafood traceability across the supply chain.

The GDST interoperable digital traceability standard provides a consistent approach to sharing traceability information between different software systems, allowing for data to be easily shared between partners. A new Completeness Tool is designed to help the seafood industry assess its progress toward GDST implementation by measuring the completeness of supply chain data, down to the product level, against the requirements of the GDST standard.

“The Completeness Tool is the second in a suite of tests and tools GDST has developed to support the implementation of interoperable digital traceability in seafood supply chains,” said Greg Brown, executive director of the GDST.

Last year, the GDST introduced the Capability Test, a verification software designed to test whether a specific software system can receive and transmit information within the GDST standard format. The new tool leverages the power of the standard to give the industry immediate feedback and direction on where to focus their GDST implementation efforts to improve data consistency.

“The tool provides insight into the robustness of a supply chain’s capability and points to where improvements are needed to achieve complete traceability data,” said Renee Perry, VP-corporate social responsibility at Culinary Collaborations and a participant in pilot testing.

All proprietary information is kept private, and the GDST does not store or share traceability data. Uploading complete data into a GDST-capable software solution allows suppliers to provide customers with the traceability information that they need.

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