February of 2018 marks the one-year anniversary of Blue Star Foods' introduction of the first-ever “scan on demand” QR code-enabled verifiable traceability application for seafood. Blue Star Foods, a crab processing sales and marketing import organization has a global footprint in Retail and food service.
Blue Swimming Crab (Portunus Pelagicus) is a wild caught species and a relevant category for some companies that import, market, sell, distribute and feature crabmeat on their menu or in their retail cases. Wild stocks from Asia have been severely depleted because of decades of intense fishing coupled with the lack of management of the fishery. However, a positive outlook for Blue Swimming Crab is emerging through technology, fueled by data and connected with API’s. Taking this application further, it promises full scalability for any sustainable fishery initiative, wild farmed or aquaculture initiative.
John Keeler, CEO/CSO was quoted to say:
“We developed this application as an improvement fishery project for our core business and to guarantee the longevity of the Blue Swimming Crab Species. With the help of partners such as Wilderness Markets to design the system, and our efforts to implement the system in the field, the pilot has validated our hypothesis. We can see a direct correlation to improper fishing practices within Blue Swimming Crab and how it impacts the supply chain, and the economics related to the harvesting and sales of Blue Swimming Crab. We have a clear picture of both negative and positive practices
Additionally, due to the design of the system, we can move our system as needed to any country of harvest and point of processing. Harvesting vessels are provided with a GPS tracking unit that records each vessel’s activities from departure port, to return and to the point of processing. Testing in other wild-caught, farmed and aquaculture scenarios are extremely promising.”
John Keeler also said that this technology hits on millennial buying ques;
John Keeler; “Millennials’ want to know where their seafood is from, how it is caught, reared and farmed. What are the social, economic and environmental impacts of consuming any species? Our application helps maintain the Blue Swimming Crab species by capturing all relevant harvest and yield data. In seconds the consumer scans the QR code, and that product's detail is displayed. Learning from data, connected with API’s, all actions recorded. From actual data, we learn how the Blue Swimming Crab species is affected by the harvesting techniques & lack of regulatory enforcement. Our app is improving our fishing practices, one pound of Blue Swimming Crab meat at a time.”
As the largest consumer demographic in US history, Millennial’s are the most outspoken and responsibility centric demographic realized in the US. With a population of 76M+, millennials will continue to be a demand demographic for all food products that are sold in the US and globally. Blue Star Foods, founded in 1995 by John Keeler has been the founder, co-founder and willing participant of several FIP (Fishery Improvement Projects) on a multinational scale. The Scan-On-Demand App is a milestone of progress and shows Blue Star’s dedication to their improvement initiatives within the Blue Swimming Crab Species.
Blue Star’s QR code-enabled Eco-Fresh Pouch is providing verifiable traceability to the consumer in “green” retail ready responsible packaging.
Source: Blue Star Foods