Lessons from Two Case Studies of Implementing Traceability in the Dried Salted Fish Industry

The traceability practices in two companies representative of those in a supply chain—one a producer of wet salted cod, the other of dried salted cod—were systematically investigated by a standard procedure. Neither company retained batch identities for all steps in the production process, and so, they did not have an effective traceability system. Although production of dried salted fish is challenging due to the many transformations taking place during production, the use of the basic technique of applying and recording unique identifiers could have provided a traceability system from delivery of wet fish through to the final dried product. This study focused on the critical points for traceability during production of both wet and dried salted fish and the practical challenges this presented.