Category: Seafood

A seafood processing facility after dark has a subtle, unsettling quality. When most consumers pull a vacuum-sealed fillet from a supermarket shelf, they are unaware of the working world that exists there: the hum of refrigeration units, the slap of rubber boots on wet concrete, and the smell of brine and bleach mixing under fluorescent lights. However, this is where the true narrative of contemporary seafood auditing is being written. In the third shift, when the cameras of courteous daytime visits have long since been turned off, rather than in flashy boardroom presentations.

Richard Chivers’ consultancy, Seafood Audit International, is part of a much broader network of inspectors, certifiers, and watchdog organizations that have been working for the past ten years to shed light on the labor practices of the industry.

By international standards, it’s a small business, but the work it represents—hazard analysis, supplier verification, and independent consulting on fish products—fits a pattern that’s getting harder to ignore. Purchasers seek evidence. Defensibility is what retailers want. Additionally, regulators want documentation that goes beyond a clipboard tick, especially in the US and the EU.

For those of us following this space, the announcement made by the Global Seafood Alliance in October 2025 felt like a long-overdue admission of an open secret. Plants that choose to use the Enhanced Social Module will be subject to overnight audits starting on November 1, 2025, if they operate outside of the convenient 8–5 window. Some processors might have anticipated this following the phase-out of fully announced audits in August 2024. Others did not, based on the discussions circulating in industry forums.

This is important for a reason. For many years, social audits in the seafood industry were practically considered performances, especially in processing centers in Southeast Asia and parts of Latin America. a planned visit.

A neat tour. A few pre-coached interviews with employees were held in front of managers. The discrepancy between the audit narrative and what transpires when the cleaning crew shows up at two in the morning is evident to anyone who has spent time inside these facilities. It’s difficult not to feel as though the industry is finally catching up with what NGOs and investigative journalists have been covering for more than ten years as you watch this evolution take place.

There are many organizations in the field, including QIMA, SGS, NOAA’s Seafood Inspection Program, and MRAG Americas, and each one takes a unique approach to the task. A large portion of the U.S. export certification system is subtly anchored by the base rate of $238 per hour in NOAA’s fee-for-service program. Ethical audits are incorporated into more comprehensive compliance packages by private companies such as QIMA.

Additionally, smaller consultancies like Seafood Audit International fill a specific niche: they are technical, hands-on, less noticeable, and frequently used when a buyer wants a second opinion or when something has already gone wrong.

Processors who built their compliance programs around predictability are uncomfortable with the shift toward overnight and surprise audits. An inspector may now visit a plant in Bangkok or Guayaquil at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday if it has passed every audit that has been announced for the past five years. It’s still unclear if the practice will endure industry resistance or if procedural carve-outs will merely dilute it. However, there’s a feeling that the course is predetermined.

The human element is what lingers as you watch this all unfold. There have always been employees working those overnight shifts. Up until now, most audits weren’t. Closing that gap, even in part, feels more like an acknowledgement that the previous system was never quite telling the whole story than it does like reform.