Fish Labelling and Supply Chain Traceability | Seafish

Fish Labelling and Supply Chain Traceability

Ensuring traceability in the seafood supply chain is essential for food safety, legal compliance, and consumer confidence.



Traceability allows authorities to recall unsafe food and ensures that seafood is legally caught within fisheries' quotas. 

This page focuses on traceability for fisheries management. If you're looking for food safety traceability, you can find that information by following the link below:

Traceability requirements 

Seafood must be traceable at every stage of the supply chain, from the catching vessel to the final consumer. This ensures compliance with fishing regulations and starts with the information supplied when fish is landed or harvested. This information must accompany the fish throughout the supply chain.  

Guidance on traceability requirements is available via the link below:

Consumer information requirements

Along with ensuring that seafood has been legally caught, the information provided helps consumers make informed choices about the seafood they buy. In most cases, a prepacked seafood product will supply food service, retail, or the final consumer, so the information can appear on the label. 

Where vendors sell seafood loose or online, they can provide the information at the point of sale. It must be available before the purchase decision, if possible. At the latest, it must be available before or at delivery to the consumer. 

For bulk-supplied products that will be repackaged for consumer sale, the mandatory traceability information must be included on the invoice or similar documentation. This ensures consistent traceability throughout the supply chain. 

Information requirements for restaurants and takeaways 

For food sold for immediate consumption, like in fish and chips shops or restaurants, less information is required at the point of sale. However, businesses may voluntarily provide additional details, as long as they follow the same labelling rules for font size, terminology, and placement.  

Although a generic name ‘fish’ can be used on a menu, if a specific fish name such as cod or haddock is used, it must be permitted for the species being sold. 

Avoiding misleading claims

Even when formal fish labelling regulations do not apply (e.g., processed seafood, food service), presentation must not mislead customers.  

Examples of misleading marketing: 

  • Farmed fish marketed with images of the sea or a beach
  • A brand name like “Ocean Catch” for farmed seafood 

Additional resources  

Seafish produced seafood specific guidance which can be accessed below.

These are archived documents produced when the UK was a member of the EU. 

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