Building A Traceability Data Infrastructure to Track Provenance and Quality in Australian Seafood Supply Chains

The Challenge

Mud crabs (Scylla spp.) are a valuable commercial seafood product in Australia, with a national market worth approximately $48 million per year. However, the high demand and price for mud crabs make them prone to illegal fishing and black-market trade. Preventing illegitimate seafood harvesting and trade is a high priority for state governments and industry stakeholders across Australia.

Mud crab fishery regulations and mandated data collections differ widely by jurisdiction, with few mechanisms to carry data through the supply chain or distinguish black-market products from legal takings.

Therefore, establishing standardised data collection practices and enabling end-to-end traceability are critical to supporting fishery sustainability, safeguarding industry viability, and ensuring the delivery of safe, authentic products to market.

The Response

We have supported the Queensland Department of Primary Industries in bringing together researchers, government regulators and industry representatives to build a digital traceability data infrastructure for the Australian commercial seafood sector, using the mud crab supply chain as a model. 

The resulting traceability system, CrabTrace, allows end-to-end tracking of individual mud crabs through the supply chain, improving transparency and delivering tangible benefits to fishers, regulators and other supply chain stakeholders. 

Our partners collaborated with government  and industry to map the mud crab supply chain and to define a minimum set of traceability data and metadata standards, including vocabularies, to ensure that data are described in a consistent manner. Moreover, they  built a secure digital data infrastructure, combining tamper-evident QR-code tags, a mobile-friendly web interface and a backend data platform with role-based access control. Crucially, the infrastructure integrates with Fisheries Queensland’s existing compliance reporting systems (e.g. the eFisher app), automatically capturing fisher-specific traceability data via secure API and eliminating duplication of effort. Together, these components enable end-to-end tracking of key mud crab provenance and quality data through the supply chain, from harvest to consumer. Commercial trials with Queensland-based crabbers confirmed the system’s technical performance, usability and marketing value, with overwhelmingly positive feedback.

Aligned with GS1 and Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST) standards, CrabTrace sets a new benchmark for digital seafood traceability and offers a scalable model for broader adoption across other fisheries, food commodities and research applications.  This innovative traceability system has the potential to significantly boost Australia’s production, distribution and consumption of high-quality and sustainable seafood.

Through collaborative innovation, we’ve delivered a digital traceability ecosystem that not only enhances transparency in the mud crab supply chain but sets a precedent for sustainable seafood industries both nationally and internationally.

Dr Donna Cawthorn

Project Leader, Queensland Department of Primary Industries

The Outcomes

The project has delivered the CrabTrace traceability platform, a practical, industry-first and regulatory-aligned solution that enables secure, tamper-evident crab-level traceability throughout the supply chain.

CrabTrace generates multi-stakeholder benefits, including a:

• mechanism for regulators to improve compliance oversight and verify legally sourced product
• vehicle for commercial crabbers to showcase the legality and sustainability of their catch, differentiate their product and build trust with buyers and consumers.buyers and consumers.
• means to identify and track mud crabs from capture to market, thereby upholding supply chain integrity, potentially opening new markets, and demonstrating transparency of the supplied product.
• secure, efficient pathway to capture, store and exchange data between stakeholders.

CrabTrace is the Queensland winner in the Government and Public Sector category of the 2025 iAwards. It was also a Queensland finalist in 3 other categories:

• Business and Industry
• Technology Platform
• Sustainability and Environmental.

Who Will Benefit

• Seafood industry
• Researchers 
• Government agencies and regulators
• Other industries

The Partners

• Queensland Department of Primary Industries (formerly the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries) 
• ARDC
• University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
• Sydney Fish Market 
• Commercial mud crabbers in Queensland and seafood supply chain operators nationwide 
• Agriculture Victoria

Key Resources

• Read an article on the project in the December 2023 Saltwater Solutions newsletter (page 5).