Dissecting the traceability of fish and fishery products in Southeast Asia: strengths, weaknesses, and needs

Abstract

Seafood traceability is the ability to fully trace a product from the point of sale back to its point of origin. This is required to follow general food law, fisheries control, and fish marketing. As part of the recent reform of the EU Common Fisheries Policy, the requirement to provide the consumer with information on the production of fisheries and aquaculture products was reviewed and extended under a new Common Organization of the Markets Regulation (EU) No 1379/2013 (CMO). This requires additional information that was previously provided to be made available to the consumers and extended to include mass caterers. It generally applies to unprocessed fishery products only and came into force in 2014. Meanwhile, the EU Fisheries Control Regulation (EC) 1224/2009 requires the traceability and availability of production information on unprocessed fishery and aquaculture products throughout the supply chain. This has been amended to account for the additional catch information required. The control regulation only applies to fishery and aquaculture products from EU waters and landed in the EU. Although not included within the scope of this guidance, control measures are also applied to imports from non-EU countries under Regulation (EC) 1005/2008 establishing a community system to prevent, deter, and eliminate IUU fishing, also known as the EU IUU Regulation, which comes with the respective implementing regulations and other legislative tools. The EU IUU Regulation includes a provision on the need for importing countries to develop their respective catch documentation schemes (CDSs) building upon the primary responsibility of the flag States to prevent, deter, and eliminate IUU fishing, and constituting a valuable supplement to port State and other measures.