BlueTrace Blog

Recalls happen--fortunately not very frequently--but they are a fact of life in any food industry. Most recalls are precautionary.  In other words, there are noconfirmed illnesses.  

Below are the details of a recall published on August 11, 2023--for oyster harvested in June 2023!!  I sure hope these are not still in circulation.  We checked with our clients and they are all clear. Hopefully no one got sick, but it clearly cost the folks involved a ton of time and hurt their reputation.   

The regulators are doing their job and making sure we all stay safe--and our industry stays healthy.  Let's all help make their jobs easy.  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The receiving dock at seafood companies can be chaos.  

We recently watched a harried guy with a clipboard direct six forklifts unloading 14 tractor trailers' worth of seafood one morning. Salmon from Norway, squid from California, tuna from Costa Rica, lobster from Maine, mussels from Canada, oysters from the Chesapeake. The list went on and on.  

The FDA today announced the final rule for Food Traceability that was required by the Food Safety Modernization Act law.  We will explore this is future blog posts, but let's start with the high level: 

Many thanks to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute for putting together an amazing 4 minute video introducing BlueTrace.    Enjoy.

Our latest release introduced inventory labels. Why?  

Receiving docks are chaotic—and incredibly important. Receiving is a regulated "Critical Tracking Event" in which the buyer is supposed to transcribe the "Key Data Elements" and ensure that the product is what they ordered and that the cold chain has been maintained. Having observed many receiving docks, we understand that the time wasted, the errors introduced, and the money lost can be significant.

There are obvious ways to improve this process, some of which the best companies have implemented. In particular, they get information about a shipment before it arrives and have the product properly labeled with a link to the digital record so receiving involves only scanning—not trying to read someone's handwriting.

Historically, this sort of tool has been available only to the largest companies. But BlueTrace has developed a system accessible to the vast majority of the market. 

In many shellfish-producing states, May 1 marks the beginning of Vibrio season. For those who don’t know, Vibrio is the most common food-borne illness caused by raw oyster (and other foods). The key management strategy: Keep it cold.