SEA-TRACES

SEATRACES is a European Atlantic Area project with partners form Ireland, the United-Kingdom, Germany, France, Portugal, and Spain, funded by an Interreg EU grant. The increasing demand in seafood products worldwide is responsible for an ever more complex supply chain, and it is in this context that SEATRACES aims to highlight the crucial importance of reliable labelling and product traceability. Ultimately, SEATRACES intends to facilitate sustainable fisheries via the promotion of new technologies.

 

SEATRACES stands for Smart Traceability and Labeling ToolBox for a Sustainable Seafood Production and the brings together a team of experts whose goal is to explore biotechnological advances and to communicate with stake holders with the aim to promote practical application intake and create economic benefit within the sector. As part of this project, the team will develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that will inform stake holders and consumers on emerging technologies that could allow to identify species quickly in the field, that could indicate the geographical origin of a product, and that could indicate whether the product was sold fresh or thawed.

 

As part of this project, the Marianilab has been actively testing a universal species identification method developed by Thermagenix that uses real-time PCR for quick on-site identification. The method has proved to be reliable and practical, and SEATRACES research assistant and Marianilab member Marine Cusa, successfully demonstrated the universality and portability of this tool in the field, on board a research vessel bound for the Celtic Sea. She will next compare this tool with other portable technologies such as the Oxford Nanopore Technology MinION. The team is also currently investigating molecular methodologies that could allow to identify the geographical location of origin of marketed fish specimen.

 

Further information on the SEATRACES project can be found here:
https://www.seatraces.eu/