ARLINGTON, VA. – FMI – The Food Industry Association has partnered with the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) to help ease the process of buying seafood.
“For a seafood buying office, one of the first major career challenges can come in understanding the various specifications for various seafood products,” said Rick Stein, FMI’s vice president of fresh foods. “Indeed, buying offices may vary from organization to organization. Different buying offices create multiple ways of describing what buyers actually want. The suppliers are often caught up trying to interpret each organization’s requirements.”
To help buyers better communicate their needs to seafood suppliers, FMI’s Seafood Strategy Leadership Council has developed a fillable form retailers and wholesalers can use to send seafood product specifications to suppliers.
According to Stein, this process will streamline and standardize the language and specifications for each seafood species to help suppliers comply and fill orders. The fillable forms allow organizations to indicate their product requirements and enable seafood suppliers to consolidate their communication.
The new forms will allow:
- Buyers to communicate their needs in a more robust and consistent way.
- Suppliers to be able to review product specifications that use consistent language.
- Buyers to learn more about the specific requirements they need to communicate to maximize efficiency.
FMI and NFI are encouraging industry members to begin using the forms. Currently, forms are available for shrimp, scallops and snow crab, and additional forms are being developed for salmon and finfish. The forms can be accessed here.
