(vasep.com.vn) Traceability is now compulsorily required for food exporters. This requirement comes from the government, independent standards organizations, and also from consumers to ensure food hygiene and safety.
Electronic traceability has many advantages with platform and creating a tool for buyers, consumers and agencies to received reports easily via a smart phone. At the same time, reliable information on manufacturers at all stages, processes, quality, safety standards and importer is all available.
Transparency is an objective requirement, forcing businesses to change to get better to suit the market. To praise business ethics, a document proposed by VASEP to Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development upon mandatory provisions on product labeling with punishments and fines for trade fraud.
Gulf of Mexico is a good example for the successful application for electronic traceability. Seafood industry recovered quickly after the oil spill. Traceability system tightly controlled and eliminated products of high risk.
The implementation of traceability also help businesses deal with false labels. Seafood labeling Gulf of Mexico became a hot trend, regardless of where they really originated from, making sales losses for real businesses in the place. Traceability system in fact, helped retailers and consumers easily recognize the origin of products and therefore rocketed sales of companies with real products in Gulf of Mexico.
In Vietnam, paper-based traceability made it hard for buyers to access. In addition, it takes much time to record and find the information. Therefore, electronic traceability is considered as irresistible solution for Vietnamese fisheries enterprises. In this system, farmers can immediately provide information about their products such as feeding, harvesting and transporting date to processors which offers necessary information for any customers.
TraceVerified is the first electronic traceability service, funded by DANIDA and Global Competitiveness Facility (GCF) with the hope to link producers and consumers to give information of Vietnamese seafood transparency.