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"Everything's tracked wheth- er it's dollar amounts, wheth- er it's transactions, you can fnd everything quickly — exactly where things came from and to whom they were sold. Everything is this big ball of twine where every- thing touches each other at some point." Seasoft's barcode system ties the product back to its original lot, even as the prod- uct changes form. Jim Levy, senior account manager for Seasoft, an enterprise re- source planning (ERP) soft- ware for seafood processing and distribution businesses from Computer Associates in Smithfeld, R.I., uses West Coast salmon as an example for how that works. After the Barcodes make it possible to quickly trace fsh back to their original lots. Photos by Angela Coulombe Back and forth Software features make it easy to track seafood up and down the supply chain 30 SeaFood Business May 2014 Visit us online at www.seafoodbusiness.com "Honestly with traceability, it's a big thing in the industry, but it's a small part of our software because it's all there with 30, 40, 50 other features." — Chris Reynolds, sales manager, Edible Software BY MELISSA WOOD B otulism, Liste- ria, salmonella and horsemeat. Te reasons be- hind food recalls may vary, but the reaction is always the same: Get that product of shelves fast. Tracing a product's jour- ney to market is not always simple, especially in the sea- food industry. A single fsh might be carved into difer- ent product forms with sepa- rate supply-chain trajecto- ries. Te ability to track that fsh is not just important; an increasing number of retail- ers are mandating third-par- ty audits or food-safety cer- tifcations with traceability components. For computer software companies that serve the seafood industry, traceability is inherent. When it comes down to it, traceability is made possible by two things: the database architecture and the data collected, explains Chris Reynolds of Edible Software in Houston. Every product has a lot number assigned to it, so if there's a problem that num- ber will bring up all the other data required for tracking it. Te company has expanded its data felds to include things relevant to seafood like meth- od of catch, when a product was received as well as when it was ordered, fxed weight and catch weight. "If a customer of a dis- tributor or wholesaler were to call in and say there's a problem with a product, the distributor can take that cus- tomer's invoice and track all the way to the large lot and see who else got that prod- uct," he says. "So if there is a real problem, they can then go to all those customers immediately." Reynolds said there was a lot of talk about traceability in Boston when his company exhibited at Seafood Expo North America in March. "Everybody that came to our booth, in some point in the conversation, they all asked what the traceability is and what we provide," he says. However, in some ways, it's not a big deal. "Honestly with trace- ability, it's a big thing in the industry, but it's a small part of our software because it's all there, it's all done al- ready with 30, 40, 50 other features, because everything is traced by lot," he says. S pecial Feature 26_WIS_28BTL_30SF_32Jump_36Networking.indd 30 4/16/14 9:30 AM