Courtesy / BlueTrace
Growers and distributors can input and print information on custom paper, using a mobile printer, used to tag product shipments.
February 13, 2023
A Castine-based digital shellfish tagging system helps growers cut through the red tape
Courtesy / BlueTrace
Chip Terry started BlueTrace in Castine in 2021 and has more than doubled its clientele. He’s seen here at Community Shellfish in Bremen.
In the past year, Castine software startup BlueTrace more than doubled its client base, from fewer than 150 to over 350 across an expanding platform of seafood species, in every coastal state except Hawaii and Mississippi and every coastal Canadian province.
BlueTrace developed a digital tracing system for seafood harvesters, growers, distributors and dealers that lets users print tags with a QR code and send reports to regulators and buyers with a click of a button.
“Clams, mussels, oyster and other shellfish from Maine are safe for human consumption because our growers and processors work hard to deliver a quality product,” said CEO Chip Terry. “A part of any successful shellfish operation includes paperwork such as shellfish tags and landing, food safety (HACCP), and distribution reports.”
The software, customized for clients and adapted to evolving federal and state regulations, connects from a personal device to a water-resistant mobile printer fitted with paper designed for outdoor use, or to an industrial printer.
In just one recent week, clients printed 33,363 tags.
In British Columbia, over a dozen new customers from growers to processors recently signed on. On the East Coast, BlueTrace is bringing on mussel, oyster and clam suppliers.
Terry grew up in Southwest Harbor and Castine and has over 20 years in tech start-up leadership in greater Boston and now runs BlueTrace from his Castine home.
We asked about the company’s background and evolution. Here’s an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: What’s your background?
Chip Terry: I moved to Boston for college, did my Ph.D. in American history, then took a left turn into the technology industry and never looked back.
I started at the Princeton Review doing their test prep software. That launched me into companies like ZoomInfo [Technologies Inc., a software and data company] and other tech startups in the Boston area. The last company I worked for, where I was in Boston managing a team of about 50 engineers in London, was sold to [British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer] Tesco. After that I moved back to Castine.
MB: How did you get from tech to shellfish?
CT: I knew a couple of guys who had started oyster farms on the Bagaduce River. We’d get into the boat, drive up the river and visit the farmers and eat their oysters. We used to call it ‘harass the farmer day.’ It was always magical. I noticed these guys had started really small, but all of a sudden they were hiring people and getting bigger and talking about people in California and New York eating their oysters.
Most of the economic development in this area of Maine, historically, has been extractive or it’s been tourism. So I loved the idea of oyster farming being great for the environment and great for the communities – and I loved to eat oysters. I wanted to get involved. But I was a little old to run an oyster farm. My higher value in helping them was with regulatory compliance. There’s huge regulatory overhead for all these small businesses.
MB: Could you describe the problem?
CT: The biggest challenge is that every bag of shellfish has to have a tag attached to it as it leaves the farm. If you’re selling 100 bags, the guy is filling out all these tags by hand and then recording it into a logbook. Then it’s transcribed to a spreadsheet and that goes to the state for the landings report and then to a distributor. Then the distributor has to tear the old tag off and put on a new one that has pretty much the same information. It’s hard to keep track of all these ins and outs along all these steps.
MB: What did you come up with?
CT: We started with the simple idea of printing out tags on a little mobile printer that’s connected to your smartphone. You create all the digital data you need for all the regulatory filings. You can tell the distributor what’s coming electronically. The distributor can scan the QR code, which provides traceability as the product goes from, say, Bar Harbor through Kittery to Boston to New York. Improved traceability means operational improvements that save these companies hours per day and reduces error rates.
MB: How do you get the word out?
CT: Some of it is trade shows and events. A lot of it is word-of-mouth.
Courtesy / BlueTrace
The BlueTrace team attended the 2022 Seafood Expo North America in Boston. From left, Andrew Kearney, Catherine Ganim, Drew Condon, Kam Kim, Call Nichols, Chip Terry and Sean Conroy. Not shown: Alessandra Bosco and John O'Sullivan. Last year BlueTrace had four full-time employees. By the end of 2023, there will be over 10.
MB: How much time does this save individual farmers?
CT: It varies. Someone told me the other day it’s three to four hours a week. The other thing is the error rate. A client on Cape Cod, before using BlueTrace, they were handwriting all their tags and one time they forgot to put the harvest date on. The inspector stopped the shipment and they had to dispose of $5,000 worth of product.
MB: Do customers have to find their own printers and paper?
CT: They can buy it all through us. We’ve got a huge warehouse in Kentucky stocked up on inventory.
MB: What’s next?
CT: We started with shellfish and we’re expanding to the rest of seafood. That’s a much bigger market.
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