Digital shellfish tags for seafood traceability

This new tagging system will help the seafood industry provide accurate and traceable information on shipments

Spotted: The shellfish market is traditionally non-digital and has long been seen as a late adopter of technology. But there has been a growing need to manage and track harvests more efficiently. Now, US company BlueTrace offers reliable cloud-based traceability solutions to seafood harvesters, growers, distributors, processors, and dealers.  

BlueTrace’s mobile platform is designed specifically for the seafood industry and allows users to minimise redundant data entry and errors, streamline operations, and trace their products from one end of the supply chain to the other. Seafood organisations can create logs and tag their products on the platform, and employees can track and trace shipments.  

Frontline workers print waterproof labels with an embedded QR code for products, directly from an iPhone to a mobile printer – a cheaper process than pre-printing the tags. All information is recorded and stored electronically, meaning it is easily traceable. 

BlueTrace announced 121 per cent growth in 2022 and has just received $3.2 million (around €3 million) in seed funding, bringing its fundraising total to $4.1 million (around €3.9 million). The latest round was led by York IE, Maine Venture Fund, and CEI Ventures. This new funding will be used to expand operations and the development of BlueTrace. 

Increasingly, consumers are concerned with where their food comes from and how it was produced, and prioritise this sustainability and transparency when it comes to choosing which products to buy. Springwise has spotted other innovations helping food distributors provide this traceable information, including an app that lets customers track the environmental footprint of seafood, and a technology that verifies the authenticity of olive oil.

Written By: Jessica Bradley