Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST)

About Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST)

The Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST) is an international, business-to-business platform established to advance a unified framework for interoperable seafood traceability practices. The GDST brings together a broad spectrum of seafood industry stakeholders, along with selected experts, from across the supply chain and from diverse regions. The GDST produces practical, commercially relevant solutions in four key areas that taken together form a new global framework for interoperable seafood traceability: key data elements, data verification, data sharing, and regulatory alignment. The GDST is primarily facilitated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Institute of Food Technologists’ Global Food Traceability Center (GFTC) who comprise the GDST Secretariat. Regulatory activity in the seafood traceability space is rapidly evolving in both producer and market countries around the world. If done properly, this can deliver real benefits for the seafood industry, as governments can help provide clear standards, collect and verify data, create the enabling conditions for fair competition, and raise consumer confidence. However, if regulations expand in an uncoordinated manner, or without taking into consideration common business realities and issues, there is a danger of proliferating incoherent requirements and excessive compliance costs. The Global Dialogue provides a platform for companies and stakeholders to help identify effective and efficient regulatory practices and to promote international alignment of regulatory approaches, and the GDST 1.0 standards provide a framework and reference point for seafood traceability regulatory harmonization.

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