EU IUU Regulation
Regulation (EC) No 1005/2008 establishes the catch certification scheme to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Catch documents must accompany all fishery product imports into the EU to confirm legal origin.
Fisheries Control Regulation
Digital Traceability for Fish and Seafood Supply Chains
The EU Fisheries Control Regulation makes digital lot-level traceability mandatory from January 2026. Paper records and PDFs no longer comply.
Keep your traceability chain intact from catch to shelf with osapiens ftrace, trusted by more than 770 enterprises across fish and seafood supply chains.
Next deadline:
January 10, 2026: mandatory digital lot-level traceability for fish and seafood is already in force. If your traceability data still moves on paper, you are non-compliant now.
Regulation timeline
What the regulation requires
Regulation (EU) 2023/2842 amends Council Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009, modernizing the EU's rules for monitoring, controlling, and enforcing compliance in fisheries. From January 10, 2026, all operators handling fish and seafood covered by Chapter 3 of the Combined Nomenclature must record a minimum traceability data set at lot level and make it available digitally to downstream partners and to competent authorities on request.
Where traceability breaks down
The catch-to-retail chain breaks at processing.
Filleting, portioning, blending, and repackaging are all points where paper systems lose the link between catch origin and finished product. By the time a fillet reaches the retailer, the origin data recorded at the fishing vessel is lost.
Catch origin data is fragmented across vessels, flag states, and ports.
A processor sourcing fish from multiple vessels or third-country exporters receives catch data in different formats, through different channels, and at different levels of completeness. Species, catch area, gear type, vessel identifier, and quota area are all required fields, yet none of this arrives in a single structured digital record.
Every customer and authority requests traceability data differently.
Wholesalers supplying multiple retail chains and HoReCa customers receive traceability requests in different formats, through different portals, with different field requirements per partner. Each request triggers a separate preparation exercise, and the resulting inconsistency creates audit risk.
Recall response time is measured in hours.
A food safety authority issuing a recall notice expects operators to identify every affected lot and every downstream customer within hours. Without a digital record of every transformation step, tracing a catch lot through to finished product and every downstream shipment is not possible in that timeframe.
osapiens ftrace: Catch-to-retail traceability for the EU market
Trace every lot from fishing vessel to retailer.
osapiens ftrace records every event in the fishery supply chain as a structured EPCIS event linked to the original catch lot: landing, first purchase, cold store, processing, portioning, repackaging, dispatch, and receipt. When product from multiple vessels is combined, the blending event is recorded and the output lot links to all input lots.
Receive supplier catch data once and share it automatically with every partner and authority.
Fishing vessels, importers, and aquaculture businesses submit catch and lot data once through the osapiens ftrace portal or via SOAP/REST API. That data is then available to downstream partners, competent authorities and consumers without reformatting for each recipient. Role-based access controls govern what each party can see.
Identify data gaps before every transfer.
Before a traceability record is shared downstream, osapiens ftrace validates it against the minimum data set requirements and checks completeness of the upstream chain. Gaps are resolved before transfer, not discovered at audit.
Respond to recalls in minutes.
With every lot event recorded digitally on one platform, osapiens ftrace supports recall impact assessment in minutes: identify the affected catch lot, trace every processing and distribution step forward, and produce a complete list of customers and shipments in scope. The same data that satisfies your traceability obligation also satisfies food safety recall requirements.
RESOURCES AND GUIDES
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Regulation (EU) 2023/2842 amends Council Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009, modernizing the EU's rules for monitoring, controlling, and enforcing compliance in fisheries. From January 10, 2026, all operators handling fish and seafood covered by Chapter 3 of the Combined Nomenclature must record a minimum traceability data set at lot level and make it available digitally to downstream partners and to competent authorities on request.
All economic operators handling fishery and aquaculture products in the EU supply chain must comply, including fishing vessel operators, aquaculture businesses, importers, first buyers, processors, cold stores, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, and foodservice operators. The obligation covers wild-caught, farmed, and freshwater products in any form: fresh, frozen, processed, or repackaged.
For every lot, operators must record and share: the unique lot identifier, species identification, production method (wild-caught, farmed or freshwater), catch or production area, product presentation and condition, net weight, and names and addresses of both supplier and recipient. This data must be forwarded to the next operator at the time of transfer and be accessible to competent authorities on request. EU importers must additionally submit catch certificates through the EU CATCH system.
CATCH is the European Commission's digital platform for the catch certification scheme under the EU IUU Regulation. From January 10, 2026, all new catch certificates for EU fishery imports must be processed through CATCH. Paper certificates issued before that date remain valid until January 10, 2028, after which CATCH is mandatory for all certificates regardless of issuance date.
The traceability obligation follows the product through every processing step. When a lot is split, each sub-lot must carry its own identifier linked to the original. When product from multiple lots is combined, the resulting lot must be linked to all input lots. When whole fish is processed into fillets or portions, the link between input catch lot and output processed lot must be recorded. Delivery note data alone is not sufficient.
Yes. Every operator who receives or supplies a lot of fish or seafood in the EU supply chain must comply, including supermarkets, cash-and-carry operators, and foodservice businesses. Retailers and foodservice operators must receive, store, and pass on the minimum digital traceability data set for every lot. Paper delivery notes and verbal confirmations from suppliers are not sufficient.
Penalties are set by EU Member States. Non-compliance can result in product rejection, shipment refusal, fines, and restricted market access. Large retail and foodservice customers increasingly require digital traceability data as a procurement condition, meaning non-compliant suppliers risk losing commercial relationships independently of regulatory enforcement.
