Legit Fish launches traceability software

Legit Fish, a Boston, Massachusetts-based traceability company, is launching a new traceability technology at Seafood Expo North America. 

The company, which has partnered with the BASE Auction Company, is unveiling its new tool on 17 March at their SENA19 booth, 289. According to a release from the company, the system will enable vessels to “hail quantities into the auction that can be sold via a real-time cloud-based platform, with transactions clearing simultaneously in milliseconds.”

“Increasing stories around seafood fraud are eroding consumer trust; we’re seeing repetitive cases where seafood is claimed to be from local waters when it is in fact imported,” Michael Carroll, CEO of Legit Fish, said in a release. “The technology we are bringing to the market changes all of that because our traceability system is verified with the official government harvest records. No one else is doing this.”

According to Legit Fish, the software will be able to trace seafood from the dock to the dinner table utilizing cloud-based software that creates chain of custody control, ensuring that the products are traceable throughout their journey. 

The debut of the new technology comes just over a week after Oceana released a study showing mislabeling of species is continuing to be a problem. That situation is what Legit Fish is attempting to eradicate, said Carroll. 

“This type of rigorous trace application will offer domestic fisheries a tool to ensure their products are not being knocked off in the marketplace by imported or even farmed goods,” says Carroll. “Currently there is no other scalable traceability tool that concretely verifies seafood products against the government harvest records.”

The application, once implemented, will be accessible by retailers, consumer, processors, and more via QR codes, and offers full-chain traceability of the product, according to Legit Fish. 

“We will change the way the seafood industry does business,” said Carroll. “The Legit Fish technology will substantially increase transparency that will benefit both the fisherman and the consumer.”