IBM, FXA Group and Vietnam join forces to ensure global seafood safety

IBM and FXA Group announced a first of a kind collaboration with the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) and the Vietnamese State Agency for Technological Innovation (SATI) that will accelerate the adoption of traceability solutions to improve global food safety.

As part of a pilot project, IBM and FXA will collaborate with several local technology companies in Vietnam to provide a system that will use radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to track Vietnamese seafood exports.

Vietnam’s seafood export market was worth more than $4.25 billion in 2008.

The initiative aims to allow tracking of the origin of Vietnamese seafood exports and help ensure seafood's freshness upon its arrival in global markets.

Over the past several months, SATI has been working with IBM and other business partners to apply new technologies in food safety, including sea and aquaculture products for export.

IBM, in collaboration with FXA, SATI and VASEP, held a seminar on May 12 in Can Tho city, Vietnam, to introduce seafood traceability systems using IT and RFID technology.

As part of the collaboration, IBM and FXA Group's traceability technologies will be tested at selected Vietnamese farms which export seafood to retailers in Japan, the US and Europe.

Using FXA technology, the organizations will be able to collect the critical data about each batch of shrimp and other seafood – which farm it came from, where it was processed, its current location, temperature, and other relevant data.

IBM technology will make that information accessible to all the parties involved in the seafood supply chain – including wholesalers, shippers, and retailers.

Additionally, the technology will enable the traceability of individual boxes of frozen shrimp with a serial number.