As commercial and regulatory demands for full-chain seafood traceability increase worldwide, more and more stakeholders are recognising the added value of:

• aligning and standardising the key data elements (KDEs) associated with seafood products;
• establishing data verification and quality guidelines to reduce costs and increase reliability;
• adopting an IT architecture for interoperability to allow easy and secure data exchange; and
• promoting the harmonisation of emerging national regulations affecting seafood traceability.

Taken together, these are the fundamental elements of a pre-competitive framework for globally interoperable seafood traceability. However, designing and adopting such a framework requires industry and stakeholders to work together across geographic regions, market sub-sectors, and different parts of the seafood supply chain.

The Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability is intended to make this possible by engaging key stakeholders – including industry vendors and regulators, and relevant scientific and civil society representatives and experts – to participate in developing cost-effective solutions.

To facilitate the discussion process, the Dialogue is organised into three working groups tasked with addressing the four interconnected issues mentioned above.

Working Group 1: Defining, Aligning and Standardising Key Data Elements
Working Group 2: IT Architecture;  Data Access & Security
Working Group 3: Policy & Regulatory Alignment

To find out more visit:

• Role of working groups
• Current working groups
• Get involved