Compliance
Bombshell reporting this week on China's abuse of forced labor in seafood has erupted into finger-pointing and calls for action across industry, service providers, advocates and even Congress. A quick aside: This is the important 'out loud' part of how any industry evolves and becomes more responsible over time. Reacting
Compliance
Yesterday The New Yorker published two lengthy exposés from indie journalist Ian Urbina on China's labor abuse in the seafood sector (citations below). They claim that 17% of the squid imported to the US was processed by forced laborers in China, some of it harvested by fishers enslaved on Chinese
Compliance
In my first year of college I heard that Big Coffee was pushing small roasters out of business and self-imposed a ban, going out of my way (and budget) to buy coffee exclusively from small vendors. One day I asked a barista about their beans and was shocked by the
Compliance
This morning, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shared some practical information about their plans for enforcing FSMA 204 on an operational level. Here's our quick breakdown of what you should know: 1. Industry will be able to submit data to the FDA in two ways: 1. They are
Tech
One of the first goals we set at Goldfish was to offer industry a gut check on fisheries sourcing data. We believe that anyone working in trade should be able to quickly and easily assess if - for example - bluefin tuna really is harvested in the Solomon Islands using
Compliance
Last week NOAA issued its biennial report on international fisheries management, which includes a list of nations engaged in Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. The report chronicles the recent history of enforcement, diplomacy and capacity building between the US and a host of nations on fishery management issues ranging
Trade
The US Department of State is all about diplomacy, but did you know that it also has a small but influential role in regulating shrimp imports? It’s true! The department bans imports from foreign shrimp fisheries that do not meet the US standard for protecting sea turtles. Thematically, the
Compliance
Goldfish asked NOAA for extra time to review its estimate of how much Seafood Import Monitoring Program compliance costs US industry. In the 30-day extension NOAA gave we surveyed brokers and importers to test NOAA’s assumptions as well as our own. It takes substantial time to connect, digitize and
Does SIMP compliance really cost $20? Importers, brokers and vendors: Click here to complete our 5-minute survey on SIMP to make the industry’s efforts heard as the government considers expansion! Special thanks to NCBFAA for partnering on this effort. Earlier this month, we asked NOAA for more time to
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Our mission is to support industry by opening new markets. As a software company, we spend most of our time translating complex regulations into software and keep an eye on the politics through our trade associations. On occasion, the right thing to do for our customers is to is stand
It is illegal to import goods produced using forced labor, but screening for violations is easier said than done. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP)’s main tool for restricting seafood imports at risk of labor violations is Withhold Release Orders. CBP has issued a handful of these targeting specific
This is shaping up to be a busy year for NOAA’s Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP). The agency has a proposed rule out for public comment (which we will discuss in depth over the coming weeks), and was handed a number of new SIMP requirements from Congress in the
TL;DR: no, you don’t. This might be surprising given how much media attention fishing vessel tracking is getting these days. In reality, importing governments like the US and EU at most will ask for the area the fish was caught and where it was offloaded. Why require general
Late last year, the Court of International Trade disagreed with the US government and sided with conservation advocate Sea Shepherd’s argument that the US must ban imports of seafood harvested in a manner that threatens the endangered Māui dolphin. While the action was immediate, implementing a highly specific trade
