With the help of this technology, seafood companies will be better able to satisfy global demand and ensure their food is safe by gauging the quality and freshness of their products.
The tracing system for aquaculture commodities will help firms save money on production and identify any faults in their products easily, so they can fix them quickly, said Ta Viet Dung, Vice Head of the Technology Application and Development Department under the Ministry of Science and Technology.
The department worked with a Thai partner and IBM for a project on the use of information and identification technology to trace the origins of seafood for national companies, VOV News reports.
Several Vietnamese firms obtained access to origin-tracing solutions to generate a supply chain for safe seafood, such that a sole tracking device – whether a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag attached to a fish, a bar code on a product package or a number assigned to a shrimp pond - is placed on each element. Consequently, seafood can be scanned and thereby have its precisely analysed data transferred to the person seeking it in real time.
IBM says its new version of InfoSphere Traceability Server is the only available software to merge business intelligence with information sharing software that meets GS1 EPCglobal's Electronic Product Code Information Sharing (EPCIS) standard.
Producers and distributors of food products in general use the software to address the need to become more accountable for their food throughout the supply chain.
The framework for tracing food to its origins is important to guarantee food safety, as it may encourage better compliance by companies to the stringent regulations set by importing countries and their management agencies.
Binh An Seafood Joint Stock Company (Bianfishco) is running the project effectively as a pilot.
Company Director General Pham Thi Dieu Hien said the old method of tracing origins was tricky to apply when tackling the large volume (200-300 tonnes) of fish processed daily and thus put the enterprise at risk of incurring large losses. Also, Bangkok-based software provider FXA Group’s OpsSmart and IBM’s Infosphere Traceability Server has helped Bianfishco turn into a foremost high-quality seafood processor.
IBM Vietnam official Thieu Phuong Nam said IBM solutions will help the country better its position in the global list of the top 10 exporters of seafood.
The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) and the Vietnamese State Agency for Technological Innovation (SATI) began the RFID pilot last year along with IBM and FXA Group to track seafood exports.