You are: Supplier

Status: Implementing HRDD

You represent a complex and pivotal part of the seafood supply chain, sourcing from and selling to multiple companies. Given your access to operations throughout the supply chain, you can have a critical influence on the implementation of best practices. You have the power to improve conditions and sourcing options across the industry.

As you develop your human rights due diligence (HRDD) program throughout your supply chain, the Collect & Assess and Engage steps of the Roadmap can information on enhancing data collection and maximizing your impact by working collaboratively. They also include direct advice and guidance to enhance your program, such as:

• Review your prioritized, salient human rights risks and identify good candidates for site visits, investigations, worker surveys, and other activities.
• Cross-reference the salient human rights risks you’ve identified with the products or supply chains most critical to your business and start there, since you often have more influence over human rights risks where you have the most purchasing power. Align expectations on labor standards and recruitment with buyers. Leverage buyer support for long-term improvements.  
• Identify gaps in traceability of products within your supply chains and develop traceability systems to increase visibility and supply chain oversight.
• Engage with a union or other worker-led association, if one is in place, to hear what is important to the workers, since unions also want to eliminate human rights abuses and labor exploitation and to encourage industry stability.   

The Tips and Examples sections of the Roadmap provide examples and case studies that show how these steps can be implemented.

Carrefour has designed its own strict traceability requirements for the food products sold in its supermarkets. In 2019, Carrefour launched, worldwide, the first blockchain food traceability system for fresh fish. In Spain, the company announced the application of this technology to its line-caught hake. Carrefour’s hake includes a QR code in its labelling, so customers with smartphones can obtain complete information on each fish, as this product is traced by unit. For example, customers can learn which boat made the catch, the coordinates of the fishing area, the fishing gear used, the exact location of the fish market where it landed, how it was conditioned, and when it was delivered to Carrefour. The line-caught hake offered by Carrefour is available within 24 hours of catch at the chain’s fish counters throughout Spain.