Traceability must be done both up and down. This means we must be able to trace products from the agricultural field to the final product and the other way around. By law, companies must be able to trace one step back and one step forward in the value chain.

Skretting demands that suppliers who manufacture, process, pack or hold feed ingredients destined for our facilities maintain and share specific information (key data elements or KDEs) for certain critical tracking events (CTEs) in the feed supply chain. This framework forms the foundation for effective and efficient tracing and clearly communicates the information that Skretting needs to perform such tracing.

Key numbers for the system includes the lot number for each consignment of each ingredient, and the batch number of finished product. From these numbers we can trace from a specific delivery of an ingredient, to the product it was used to produce, which batch was delivered to a customer, and vice versa.

Some of the most important key data elements provided by the traceability keys include: 

• Supplier data (name, address, country). In the case that the manufacturer of the feed ingredient is different from the supplier, it is variable how easily available this information is
• Information linked to the origin of the feed ingredients where available, including country of origin of primary production (agricultural products). Registration of this information is dependent upon how we evaluate the risk of the primary feed ingredient

Specifically for marine ingredients we also receive: 

• Manufacturer information (name, location and validity and certification schemes) 
• Country of origin (country where the batch was processed)
• Species that make up the batch, including the common name in English and the Latin name. When a complete list of by-catch is declared, species that in total constitute less than 5% of the batch can be recorded as “other”
• Certification status such as Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), MSC Fishery Improvement Project (Comprehensive), MarinTrust, MarinTrust Fishery Improvement Project, no certification
• Type of product (whole fish or by-product)
• FAO fishing area

Information requested from our suppliers is stored in Skretting’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The data are usually transferred via documentation that corresponds with the batch to be delivered. Traceability data as of today are not electronically transferred to us from our suppliers, although this is something that we want to prioritise in the short term.

The data can be verified in several ways. In the case of supplier audits, verification of traceability data is an important part of the audit. Verification can also be obtaind through analyses from external laboratories, verified by certification schemes and independent surveyors. The type of verification used will be partially dependent upon how critical the information is.