Title: Traceability and quality in fresh fish export chain: an Icelandic and Capverdian study

The aim of this study was to improve Icelandic and Capverdian fresh fish exports, by means of traceability and quality related information. For that purpose, EU and US regulations regarding traceability were reviewed. Traceability is now a clear legal requirement and companies have to implement appropriate systems to stay competitive. An Icelandic fresh fish export chain was used to verify the implementation of traceability systems and to find the correlation between traceability and quality management systems. The TraceFish standard for captured fish was also used as a tool to evaluate the traceability system implemented by each member in the chain. The quality related information kept by each member, especially the temperature records, was also studied. The results show that the TraceFish standard is practical and can be used by companies as a tool to implement/improve the traceability systems; they also showed that traceability and quality related information is already combined to some extent. In a fresh fish export chain, the key factor is to maintain freshness. Although the chosen chain was short, relatively large fluctuations in the surrounding temperature were experienced. A temperature difference between the product and the surroundings of 4°C, for more than 1.5 hours, leads to a change in the product temperature which could influence the product quality. Finally, a traceability scheme was suggested to improve the traceability system in a Capverdian fresh fish export chain by using the Icelandic study; a storage house located in S. Vicent Island was used as an example. The suggested traceability system was also compared to the TraceFish standard, which proved to be very practical even for small scale export as in Cape Vert.