As international seafood businesses prepare to gather in Boston next week at the Seafood Expo North America, the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST) has launched a consultation on a major update to its traceability standard. Building on growing momentum in seafood, the market-led foundation is now planning to evolve its standard to move beyond the sector, paving the way for a unified approach to digital traceability across global commodities.
The GDST Standard V1.0, which was launched in 2020, already supports end-to-end digital traceability throughout the seafood supply chain by setting guidelines for capturing and sharing key data at each stage in the chain. This ‘digital interoperability’ enables data sharing between businesses and countries using different systems – crucial for combating illegal practices, verifying sustainability claims, and meeting the demands of global markets. With the world’s first government – Indonesia – adopting the standard for its national traceability system in 2025, momentum has grown rapidly.
A major update to the standard is planned for 2026, moving beyond seafood with a commodity-agnostic, modular approach that can flex to fit new sectors. The development has been driven by a recognition that the seafood supply chains not only include marine ingredients but also soy, palm oil, wheat and rice for aquafeeds and other commodities in packaging. With growing cross-sectoral interest in the model in recent years, the GDST has recognised that the potential for digital interoperable traceability extends far beyond marine products.
Huw Thomas, Executive Director of GDST, said “GDST is already changing the game for seafood. By enabling businesses and consumers to trace products from source to sale, we can unlock individual stories in this complex system, tracking where and how seafood has been caught, farmed, processed, packaged and distributed. This is crucial to hold businesses all along the supply chain to account. GDST’s approach to seafood has proven that the model works, and now we are at the start of something much bigger. For the first time, other supply chains will be able to apply GDST’s successful approach to their own commodities. This is a step-change towards transforming global systems, ultimately giving businesses and consumers confidence that they are buying and using ethical, responsible, safe and sustainable products.”
Under the new approach for the latest version of the GDST Standard – version 2.0 – a commodity-agnostic core is being developed that will allow any module to be bolted on to meet the specific needs of different products. Some modules are already in beta development in anticipation of the update. This includes the Global Traceability Framework for Beef and Leather, developed by Better Food Future in collaboration with GDST. In February, software provider Wholechain became the first traceability solution provider to successfully pass the beta capability test for the Framework, indicating that the company’s software meets all the criteria for the new module. Wholechain is not new to the traceability movement, however, having joined GDST in 2022 and passing the seafood capability test in the same year.
Wholechain CEO Jayson Berryhill said, “We are proud of our active participation with GDST in testing new tools for interoperability, which underpins our work at Wholechain. Back in 2021/22 we began the early work developing a data standard for beef and leather traceability along with IDH: The Sustainable Trade Initiative, RFLCT, and Better Food Future in support of UN Global Compact Ocean Stewardship Coalition — and GDST was referenced in this work from the beginning. Today we are proud to say GDST underpins our recently published Global Traceability Framework for Beef and Leather, developed with WWF, Better Food Future and RFLCT. Passing GDST’s beta capability test for beef and leather is the latest step for the industry, and we’re excited to see what else the updated GDST Standard will unlock.”
GDST plans to launch its new standard on 1st July 2026. It is currently holding a public consultation on the proposed updates, running from March to May 2026.
Thomas added, “We welcome everyone with an interest in digital interoperable traceability to take part in the consultation and help shape the direction of our new commodity-agnostic approach. Launching the new core Standard in July is only the beginning of our next chapter: we’re looking forward to seeing which new modules can be added to transform the sustainability of global commodities.”
The GDST will be sharing more details at its Open Forum event at the Seafood Expo North America on 15th March between 2 and 3pm EST in the Faneuil Room, Westin Hotel.