Industry stakeholders from ACPF and APFA have identified the potential for the "Love Australian Prawns" campaign to be undermined by the practice of unscrupulous operators substituting Australian prawns with lower value product. Therefore it has been proposed that, to support the national marketing strategy, a rapid and robust scientific method must be developed to verify compliance and, ensure product integrity, including food safety, truth in labelling and traceability. The trace metal authentication methods used by other primary production industries represents a possible opportunity to prove provenance. Should the technology prove suitable, a detailed and effective communication strategy (aligned with the LAP distribution channels) is considered mandatory to ensure whole of chain knowledge of the capability and aligned consequences for substitution offenders. This project is broken into two parts;
1) Proof of Concept: To establish enforcement agency and supply chain usage of the tool, to call for tenders against a defined brief
2) Database construction and extension: If project investors agree that the proof of concept will meet the need (ie a project STOP/GO point), the technology will be utilised with the plan to implement it as a provenance tool.