BIM-Irelands Seafood development agency - image
BIM-Irelands Seafood development agency - image

BIM-Irelands Seafood development agency

Digitalisation in seafood-roadmap and implementation


Read About:

  • Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) is Ire-lands seafood development agency.
  • In 2019 BIM identified a requirement that a digitalisation roadmap should be developed for the Irish Seafood Sector and put it out to tender which Verifact won.
  • In 2020 Verifact was awarded a further contract to implement recommendations from the 2019 Digitalisation Roadmap for Irish Seafood.
  • This necessitated working with a range of seafood processing companies, producers and retailers to provide a cloud-based software platform to capture data from all supply chain participants.
  • The project provided fully supply chain validation and allowed the story of the product from ocean to shelf to be told using on pack QR Codes.

Background Context

In 2021 the Irish Seafood economy was worth €1.26 billion with 17,000 people employed directly in the Industry. Domestic sales value of seafood in Ireland in 2021 was €418 million making it a lucrative market.

A digitalisation roadmap was developed setting out the potential of the use of emerging technologies to differentiate and add value to Irish seafood.

In Europe and North America there is a growing trend across all food categories to implement emerging technologies to introduce efficiencies in supply chain, transparency and strengthen food safety systems.


Solution

Verifact developed a digitalisation roadmap set-ting out the opportunities and challenges of implementing emerging technologies in the Irish seafood sector.

The report described the competitor landscape in both seafood and across other categories both nationally and internationally.

One of the key recommendations of the report was the implementation of pilot projects within the Irish seafood industry as a proof of concept in relation to the advantages of adopting the emerging technologies such as blockchain.

During 2021 Verifact worked in collaboration with BIM to implement supply chain projects in Hake and farmed Salmon. The Verifact solution involved taking data at all key points in the supply chain from primary producers through processing out onto retails shelves. Data was captured using a variety of mechanisms including online data entry portals and automated feeds from existing systems.

Verifact implemented a blockchain based traceability system which allowed the tracking and tracing of the nets from the fishing vessels right through the recycling process to the final product produced from the pellets.

The final product carries a QR Code consumers can scan to learn the verified story of the product. This story of the product is crucial as it creates added value to the end product.


Impact

The outcome of the pilot projects was to capture full supply chain data in wild capture Hake and farmed Salmon in the Irish seafood sector.

The project enabled both species to be differentiated in terms of provenance and sustainability credentials. The project allowed participating seafood businesses to make better informed commercial decisions.

The story of both Hake and Salmon was brough to the consumer using on pack QR Codes leading to consumer facing web page. This allowed consumers to make an informed decision in relation to the seafood products they were purchasing. It further allowed the retailer track consumer interaction with the QR Codes

Finally, the project allowed participating seafood processing companies to differentiate themselves in terms of provenance, quality and their individual story.


Thursday 2nd June 2022

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