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New FDA Requirements for Seafood Traceability

New FDA Requirements for Seafood Traceability

 

Seafood Traceability Requirements

Retailers, restaurants, and consumers have been very frustrated with the fraud and mislabeling of fish and seafood across the USA. A global review of seafood fraud studies around the world found one in five of more than 25,000 samples of seafood tested worldwide was mislabeled. In a bid to restore some consumer confidence back to the seafood industry, in November 2022, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a new ruling with respect to seafood traceability.

 

Key Data Elements & Critical Tracking Events

The list includes most kinds of seafood. The final rule is a requirement that persons who manufacture, process, pack or hold food on the Food Traceability List (FTL), must maintain records that include Key Data Elements (KDEs) related to Critical Tracking Events (CTEs). Seafood producers that qualify under these rules will be required to provide information to the FDA within 24 hours or otherwise some reasonable timeframe to which the FDA agrees. 

Time is running out for Food and Beverage companies, including fish and seafood processing plants, to build the automated infrastructure to support capturing such traceability information required under the new FDA rules. Food companies need to look for a proven solution like Emydex to support these new traceability requirements.

 

Fish & Seafood Processing

The FDA has aggressive deadlines, few exceptions, and no phase-in. The proposed rule would make compliance using paper-based systems nearly impossible. These rules apply to both domestic and imported fish, thus requiring all exporting countries like Canada, Europe, and UK to comply with these rules or be barred from trading in the USA. The USA currently imports up to 85% of its seafood, according to NOAA Fisheries.

To ensure the required traceability information is shared across all supply chain entities, the best way to implement the rule is for all persons to have completed the implementation of the rules by January 20, 2026. Although companies might think 2026 is a long way away, it can take up to 2 or more years to select and implement an automated solution to capture the traceability information to enable food processing software companies to be able to generate the traceability reporting within 24 hours.

 

End to End Traceability

Emydex provides the solution for effective and efficient tracing of the harvesting of fish or seafood from the vessel on the sea or farms, through receiving at the ports, to transfers to storage in cold stores or a processing plant, following the production process, the distribution and finally receipt at a retailer or other value add processors.

Vessel Labeling & Payments
Vessel Labeling & Payments

Emydex-Fish-Landing
Landing and Transfer to Plant

Emydex-Fish-Intake
Labelling

Emydex-Fish-and-Seafood-Industry
Processing

Emydex-Fish-Packing-Processing
Packing

Picking & Delivery
Picking & Delivery

Barcode Scanning

Emydex captures the data along the supply chain through the use of traceability barcode lot codes applied to containers, to monitor the flow of products in different forms through the supply chain, using scanners connected to the Emydex system. The traceability barcodes share information as the product flows to different entities along the supply chain. The barcode lot labels comply with the global GS1 standards to ensure the barcodes are readable across the supply chain and globally around the world.

 

How Does Emydex Enable You To Be Compliant?

Emydex provides a proven manufacturing execution system (MES) for the fish and seafood industry. Operating in over 25 factories, covering a wide range of products, the Emydex system covers all processes from boat labeling, landing, primary, secondary and further processing. Not only can factories that choose to implement Emydex MES ensure they are compliant with the upcoming FDA requirements, but they can also leverage Emydex to enable automation, have real-time inventory on all stock, and manage yields from door to door.

These automated solutions take time to implement, so with the FDA compliance as of Jan. 2026, Fish Processing and other Food Processing Companies need to start now.

For more information on an Emydex Traceability solutions for Fish & Seafood processors read ...

Emydex Traceability in Tuna Processor in the Philippines

Meliomar Inc. is a tuna and seafood processing and export company based in Manila. Their Emydex factory floor traceability reporting system first went live in 2018.

Contact Emydex for information on how we can help you automate your processes to ensure you can meet the FDA requirements.

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Success in a Greenshell

Success In A Greenshell

Whakatōhea is an indigenous New Zealand iwi (confederation of Māori tribes) centred around the small coastal town of Ōpōtiki in the Eastern Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand.

Over 20 years ago, Whakatōhea created the aspiration to develop a Greenshell™ Mussel aquaculture farm off the coastline of Ōpōtiki. The vision was that the farming operation would support the development of a mussel processing factory in Opotiki and be the foundation of employment for their people, provide income for whanau (family), and support improved outcomes for the entire community.

Open Ocean Greenshell™ Mussel Farm

Creating the world's first Open Ocean Greenshell™ Mussel Farm of such magnitude was no easy feat. The consent process took over 10 years of legislative change and resource consent approval, followed by a further 5 years of research and feasibility trials. When the venture needed capital to reach commercialization, the community came together – with both local Māori and Pakeha, businesses, families, and local trusts investing to enable the farming operation to further expand.

Today - with iwi support, national government contribution, and significant shareholder investment – the dream for Te Whakatōhea iwi and the local community is no longer just a dream; it is a living reality.

Te Whakatōhea Mussel Farm currently lies just over 8.5 km off the coastline of Ōpōtiki. The farm expands across over 3800 hectares of nutrient-rich, clear, and open ocean water space.

Mussel Processing Technology

Mussels are harvested daily from the farm and delivered directly to the Ōpōtiki Processing Facility. From there, mussels are immediately processed and freighted all over the world under the brand name Open Ocean.

Upon completion of the factory, the team at Whakatōhea Mussels realised that to provide a world-class product with traceability back to the farm, and even to the area of the farm where the mussels were harvested, no ordinary software package would do the job. After a worldwide search for a solution, Whakatōhea Mussels contacted Emydex. Emydex already had a fully functioning manufacturing execution system (MES) providing complete traceability in many seafood processing sites around the world.

Emydex Mussel Processing

Given the new processing facility was due to start processing in a few weeks, speed was of the essence. Within weeks the system was in place and ready to use. Being deployed in the Cloud meant no additional IT infrastructure was required at the plant with the existing touch screen terminals and scales easily integrated into the Emydex solution. Android-based barcode scanners connect seamlessly via the Internet to the Warehouse Management System's database allowing for the issuing and dispatching of stock from the plant.

The Emydex Process

Mussels are bought into the plant in large hessian bags of up to a tonne where they are weighed and labelled which is recorded in the system with the harvest information resulting in a clear view of the quantity and origin of raw materials on the plant. From here the mussels are issued to a production grading ‘job’ where they are scanned using a traceability barcode into the job linking to the original harvest number thereby providing traceability back to the farm.

From here the mussels are recorded out of grading as a work-in-progress product again using a traceability barcode to track the mussels through the process. Finally, they are issued to the packing process where they are recorded and labelled for shipment whilst still retaining the traceability from the farm to the finished items. The traceability is retained throughout the process by simply scanning the traceability barcode at each stage of the process.

Scott Fitzgerald, ICT Manager for Whakatōhea Mussels said of the implementation
The team at Emydex have done a great job, the documentation that was pulled together so quickly because our business needed a quick implementation was good, it is well-detailed and easy to follow. Emydex provided training for the admins and super users, all of which has been useful.

When asked after the go-live how he viewed the implementation Scott commented;

Very successful, being a greenfield site, we have been finding our way through the processes, not only with Emydex but as a business moving forward. Sometimes we knew what we wanted, other times we needed Emydex to be patient with us and help us to discover what we can and cannot do with the system. Emydex was great in helping us do this. Moving from the manual system to Emydex has already increased our productivity and will continue to do so.

And finally, how was the process overall?

In one word, great. Emydex has been easy to deal with and helped us to give our business the commercial push it needed regarding a production system.*

 

If you want to learn more – contact Ireland, Australia, South Africa or North American offices

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When Canfisco went fishing for an IT partner

Following acquisition and growth, The Canadian Fishing Company (Canfisco) found themselves with a variety of different legacy IT systems, all working independently. They turned to Emydex to help land one system that integrated everything.

Meet the client

The Canadian Fishing Company (Canfisco) has sustainably harvested wild fish from the coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest for over 110 years. The company operates the largest fishing fleet in British Columbia, over 850 vessels, that every year lands over 100 million pounds of mostly salmon, herring, rockfish, halibut and hake. Landed fish is supplied to the company’s nine processing plants located on the pacific coast in Richmond, Prince Rupert, Greater Vancouver, and Alaska.

The opportunity

Canfisco has grown both organically and through acquisition. As each new acquisition was moved into the Delta Pacific Seafood location, the software and processes were not consolidated into a single integrated process or software application. This left Canfisco with six different major applications and many Excel applications to compensate for the different systems at work throughout the group.

“Company acquisitions had left us with a patchwork quilt of components and old systems that were handling all of our processing.”
John Capling, Project Manager, Canfisco

However, the greatest risk to the business came from the out-of-date applications running on an over 25-year old Unix platform with limited hardware support. This environment left a very disjointed operation that only worked due to the efforts of staff acting as the glue to keep everything working together. Before Emydex came on board, Canfisco had at least five BOM process, four box labelling process and three separate financial applications in place in the organization.

What we did

Canfisco needed a new IT system that could provide a single source of the truth for the organization, providing improved visibility and measurement throughout the business, streamlining administration and, ultimately, improving the performance of the company.

The consensus within the various departments and plants was that any new software solution should be able to replicate what they were already doing, process-wise, i.e. it should keep the good things that worked well and with which everyone was familiar. To this, we should add some magic in the form of some low-hanging savings improvements, whilst at the same time providing the foundation for a software system that can grow into a more advanced solution over time.

Although we are replicating Canfisco functionality I was impressed to see how the Emydex team automated the link between the plant’s recorded catch of fish to actual sales, to ensure Canfisco sales can presell the fresh fish. This ensures they can get maximum value for the catch versus having to freeze the fish for less profits.
Terry McCorriston, Sales Manager/Business Analyst, Emydex North America

Going Live

Canfisco understood that they needed to address the highest risk area which was the groundfish applications running on the old Unix system so a phased implementation was taken to minimise any operation interruptions. After initial consulting and analysis, it was decided to go live with the ground fish box labelling and fillet line in December 2019 and bring on the port receiving in spring of 2020.

The Results

Key to the success of this project was to ensure it would be a gentle evolution and not a revolution. Keeping staff at all levels throughout the operation happy was very important and Emydex was careful to tread lightly. The most obvious improvement has been the elimination of the major risk of running the business on antiquated unsupported Data General (DG) Unix equipment. While there are a few minor applications still on the Unix platform, the team is working to quickly migrate them in the next phase.

Phase one has been completed but already administration efficiency has improved, as expected, thanks to reduced duplication of entry into multi applications and processes. Time consuming consolidation has been reduced and as other fish species are migrated to the new system in upcoming phases, staff will see all of the improvements fall into place.

“Emydex combined a bunch of old systems into one to handle all of our processing. Now everything is processed and tracked through one piece of software. Phase one went very well and so far, it is looking very good and the great thing is there wasn’t a steep learning curve for our people on the floor. Visibility has improved greatly, and we know real efficiencies are coming down the line.

Emydex took what we liked from the old systems and mirrored it, especially with scales and processes – things are labelled now and tracked automatically as opposed to manual entry of old.”
John Capling, Project Manager, Canfisco

There is now better traceability of fish from catch, through processing, to the end sale. Operational performance has improved too due to reporting on giveaway and production yields (with a potential of 2% improvement in raw material utilization) and, of course, Emydex has provided the foundation to build the operational performance measurements over time.

Interestingly, most of the implementation was done remotely which saved costs for the client and also worked out perfectly as the Covid-19 pandemic struck right in the middle of the project and had little effect on our timelines.

“I was happiest with the Emydex team’s flexibility to work with Canfisco to adapt (the software) to allow a phased implementation. I was also impressed that Emydex was able to handle the volume of transactions from day one of going live.”
John Capling, Project Manager, Canfisco

What's Next?

This is the first phase of the implementation – the next phases will cover other fish species – and it builds the foundation applications for future improvements, including analysis of expected costs against actual costs, gross margin visibility at the different levels (including vessel, customer and sales order analysis). Improvements in dry goods control will come next as will the automation of HACCP and QC processes and cold storage invoicing.

In other's words

“Emydex spoke our language, much more than Microsoft… they understood our industry and our business. The (Emydex) system is friendlier, easier to use, intuitive and when the warehouse guys saw it they gave us their blessing so the decision to run with it was a no-brainer in the end. It has replaced very old legacy systems that weren’t integrated and left us very exposed to risk. The result is a solution that’s much more efficient and customisable so that we can add functionality as people have requested it.

The Emydex team were great – very responsive and easy to work with, despite the time difference… very professional and they really know their business. I’m looking forward to Emydex expanding further into our other processes, cold storage, our warehouses and beyond”
Mark Cornell, Senior Vice President

Contact Sales in any of our Dublin, Brisbane, South Africa or Toronto offices

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Emydex Traceability in Tuna Processor in Philippines

Meliomar Inc. is a tuna and seafood processing and export company based in Manila, Philippines. Meliomar focus on the development and trade of responsibly produced and high quality sustainable seafood, sourced from small-scale fisheries from areas throughout the Philippines.

Meliomar is a commercial partner of the Artsemar program for fisheries improvement run by Blueyou Consulting, based in Switzerland. By creating direct market access for seafood caught by smallholder fishers, the Artesmar initiative promotes the development of more sustainable business and fishing practices.

Meliomar traceability tagging

Blueyou leads and participates in Fishery Improvement Projects, one of which projects was to implement an Emydex electronic data capture production control system in the Meliomar operation to replace their existing manual system. They were also looking for a comprehensive real-time Traceability system to replace their manual paper-based system for traceability recording and reporting.

Door-to-door Factory Floor System

Emydex implemented their Intake, Packing & Processing, Order Management and Warehouse Management software modules to cover Meliomar’s factory floor processes, from factory door-to-door including Procurement, Reception, Manufacturing, Packing, Sales Order Picking and Dispatch. As part of the implementation Emydex also built a series interfaces to their back-office ERP system, Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

As Meliomar source fish from a multitude of suppliers and fishermen, Tuna ID tags are recorded as the fish are purchased. Each ID tag has a unique number made up of a location code and a consecutive number. Data capture and quality data is recorded at intake using a fixed position weighing station. Four labels are printed for each fish at intake, one for each loin, to ensure traceability is fully maintained throughout processing, using 2D Barcodes.

Meliomar’s business processes required Emydex to be more flexible in their approach to the system design, including the requirement to pack directly to Sales Orders pulled from NAV, as opposed to packing to stock.

Another requirement was the need to perform both Intake and Dispatch in off-line mode, as well as online (via wi-fi and network), due to poor internet connection in one of their factories. Meliomar needed functionality that allowed the creation of Purchase Orders and printing pallet labels on-site, and then load the POs onto a hand-held scanner.

The scanner and labels are later brought to a separate frozen storage facility, where they label pallets, enter the number of boxes on that pallet, and scan the pallet against a PO. When they get back to the main site, the data is then synced, and the data can be viewed on the system.

Predictive Re-Ordering

A key feature of this project was predictive re-ordering, which is based on average usage of a selected frozen product based on previous usage levels. Additional functionality allows them to optionally set a multiplier for a given week, in the event that they think they will be using more than the predicted amount for any given week. They can also set lead times for each product and receive warnings indicating that they will need to make a purchase order to maintain sufficient stock, or forecast when they will be out of stock, ensuring they have full visibility over stock levels at all times.

Production and Traceability Reporting System

Meliomar now have a comprehensive Production control & Traceability reporting system operating on the factory floor from door to door. By migrating from a manual system to an electronic data capture production reporting system and implementing an Emydex traceability system, this allows Meliomar to reliably trace all tuna products direct from their origin.

Commenting on the project, Christian Schmidradner, Meliomar General Manager said “Trust in the system is fast growing and the teams see how much less work is involved in processes (before handwritten and Excel inputted numbers in the thousands in forms, tedious hand-written reports to cross check for accounting and traceability purposes) and they have started to appreciate the system. We are very happy with the new system and I want to thank the Emydex team for their dedication and intensive work on customising and implementing our system over the last year”.

David McMahon, Emydex CEO added “the Meliomar system build was an interesting project in that the project was led for the customer by the BlueYou Consulting team in Switzerland, with the end-user and factory operations based in Manila, Philippines. Full credit to the combined project management and technical delivery teams for the successful configuration and implementation of a tailored Emydex factory floor solution for Meliomar, including integration to 3rd party industrial equipment and back-office systems, without ever having to visit the Philippines”.

For enquiries contact sales@emydex.com or call Emydex on contact us

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HJ Nolan Salmon Filleting Yield Control System

HJ Nolan Ltd have been in business for 95 years, since 1912. The company sells premium seafood products worldwide, mainly smoked salmon, under the well-known ‘Nolans Seafoods’ brand. Today the company employs almost 300 people across its two Seafood processing facilities in Dublin, Ireland and Aberdeen in Scotland.

HJ Nolan approached Emydex Technology and SF Engineering in 2014, with a request to commission a new salmon filleting and trimming line from SF Engineering, integrated to an in-line real-time Yield and Efficiency reporting software system from Emydex Technology.

Sean Carolan, IT Manager with HJ Nolan’s in Dublin explains the background to the project, “before the Emydex and SF Engineering solution was implemented, all our salmon filleting was done manually. This resulted in us being unable to calculate our yields until the end of the working day, and this calculation was done with pen and paper. This process was time consuming and often lead to inaccuracies and mistakes. As our production started to ramp-up, we found it increasingly difficult to manage this process, and it became necessary to find a way to automate this process.”

Automated Yield Reporting

SF Engineering and Emydex set to work with Nolans to design and build the end-solution required. This exercise resulted in a SF Engineering salmon filleting & trimming conveyor line, complete with an In-feed holding bin, de-heading station, weigh hopper and a distribution conveyor that feeds the salmon to six salmon filleting operators working on the line. Each individual operator station consists of a buffer hopper, a holding hopper, a trimming table, an offal chute and a reset button.

SF Engineering Salmon Filleting and Trimming SystemSF Engineering Salmon Filleting and Trimming System

To operate the system, each salmon-filleter working on the conveyor line first presses their reset button. This triggers the holding hopper to retract, and a new salmon falls into the hopper from the buffer hopper. The filleter then removes the fish to complete their trimming tasks, and once completed, places the fillet back onto the magenta weighing conveyor. The conveyor records the weight of the fish, and then waits for a free space on the takeaway conveyor. Once free, the conveyor sends the fish off to the pin-bone machine. When the operator’s holding-bin is emptied, the operator presses the reset button, starting the whole process all over again.

Cloud-Hosted or On-Premise

During each operation cycle, Emydex’s Data Capture System (DCS), captures each individual filler’s production data, and calculates the batch yield in real-time. Sean Carolan explains “the Emydex software system allows us to capture accurate yield data; weight-on versus weight-off, as well as production throughput; time-on versus time-off, from each individual filleter in real-time. This information is stored in a central cloud-hosted Emydex database, that can be viewed by both operators on the line, as well as our production supervisors on an industrial monitor running Emydex in the factory.

Real-Time KPI Reporting

Displaying production data and KPIs as they are happening in real-time, tends to have a motivational effect on the filleters working on the line, and improves operator productivity. Emydex production reporting can also be accessed on client PCs in the back-office, as well as anywhere around the world via a smart-phone, given the system is hosted in the cloud”.

On-floor Production reporting monitor displays individual filleter yields and throughputs accurately in real-timeOn-floor Production reporting monitor displays individual filleter yields and throughputs accurately in real-time

Carolan Continues “The ability to export accurate information instantly from the Emydex system, has greatly improved the process by which the filleters are paid. Before the implementation of the Emydex system, the production supervisor would have had to manually calculate each filleters weights and rate of pay. This information can now be exported and sent directly to our accounts department. The individual yield of each filleter can now be much more closely monitored by their supervisor. This allows us to insure each filleter is maintaining a satisfactory yield throughout the day.”

Traceability Reporting

“In addition to Yield and efficiency reporting, Emydex is also recording and reporting on food chain traceability throughout the production process” outlines David McMahon, Emydex CEO. “traceability details recorded for each batch include the Emydex ITN (Internal Traceability number), Production run, Supplier, Harvest Number, Harvest Date, Product, Species and size. Same as for production reporting, traceability reporting is available instantly and accurately, from any device connected to the central database in the cloud. Optionally, the system can be hosting on-site/on-premises if required”.

Customer Support

Sean Carolan concludes “Emydex offered unwavering support to Nolans from the onset of this project. Throughout the initial design process, the implementation and the aftersales support, Emydex has maintained an unparalleled level of support and professionalism. It’s always a pleasure dealing with anyone from the Emydex team, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to anyone in the market for reliable, well-supported factory floor software solution.”

 

About Emydex Technology: Emydex Technology is a leading supplier of Traceability reporting and Production Management Software systems to Meat, Fish and Food Processors around the world. Over 100 food processing factories, operating across 4 continents, use Emydex factory floor software systems to monitor, control and report on their Production yields, stocks, traceability, food quality, safety and compliance.

About SF Engineering: SF Engineering is an award-winning Irish engineering company that designs and manufacturers food processing and packaging solutions for the food industry globally. The company’s Engineering solutions are operating in meat, fish and food processing companies throughout Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Chile

About Emydex & SF Engineering: Emydex Technology and SF Engineering have worked on a number of joint software/hardware integration projects for shared customers over the past number of years. In addition to the salmon filleting line solution delivered to HJ Nolans, other joint projects including Emydex integration to an SF Engineering pork primal grading line, as well as integration to RFID controlled SF Engineering conveyor systems operating in a lamb Processing plant in the UK.

For enquiries contact sales@emydex.com or call Emydex on contact us

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Clogherhead Fishermen’s Co-Op: Labelling at Sea

Fish Processing – Clogherhead Fishermen’s Co-Op

Clogherhead Fisherman’s Co-Op, is a leading Irish Seafood producer based in Clogherhead, Co. Louth, on the East Coast of Ireland. This video describes how Clogherhead Co-Op use Emydex’s Production Management and Traceability software on their fleet of trawlers as well as throughout their processing factory for data capture, labelling of product at sea, landings, into-warehousing, sales order picking and dispatch, providing Clogherhead Co-Op with real-time and accurate Traceability reporting from boat-to-truck.

Emydex’s Labelling at Sea software operating on the fleet of twelve frozen at sea trawlers, enables on-vessel printing, meaning product arrives to shore already labelled, saving time and ensuring full Traceability from the boat to the customer.

<!–Clogherhead Co-Op Video–>

Fish Processing and Traceability

Processing and Traceablility

Project Highlights

“The key for me is that Emydex were able to provide Clogherhead with their standard fish system built in consultation with BIM (Irish Fisheries Board), the SFPA (Seafood Fisheries Protection Agency), as well as the GS1 (Global Standards agency), but allow Clogherhead to tailor and tweak the system to suit our specific needs and processes exactly.
Aside from our old factory floor system, we also previously operated a bespoke-built boat invoicing and payments system.

Emydex were able to configure and build into their standard Fish system, the very same functionality as our previous system, meaning we now have everything we need in a single system, supported in-life by the Emydex support team. After a year at sea, the Co-op that includes the factory and fleet of boats all see the efficiencies and savings realised from our new labelling-at-sea systems”

Paul Boyd, Managing Director – Clogherhead Co-Op

“This project included a first for Emydex, in that our software is now operating on a fleet of boats in an offline environment, but at the same time has proved very successful. Hopefully over time this is something that will be adopted by the fishing industry as a whole”

David McMahon, Emydex CEO

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