Getting multiple vessel results on the Trace Your Catch website will typically be the case with albacore products and less so with skipjack and yellowfin tuna. This occurs primarily with albacore as the longline vessels typically bring in relatively small catches that can have a range of fish sizes. For proper, safe, and efficient processing (e.g. thawing and pre-cooking), fish of similar size, from different vessel trips need to be processed together rather than having all fish of different sizes from the same vessel trip flow from vessel to can. The quality of albacore within the same vessel catch can vary as well so to obtain highest quality albacore, we may have to select similar size and similar quality from multiple vessels to get efficient production lot sizes. The light tuna that goes into skipjack and yellowfin tuna products is caught by larger purse seiners that bring in larger catches of more similarly sized fish resulting in less co-mingling of production across vessels.
In both cases, the lots of fish are tracked all the way through the process so we know which fish from which vessels go into given production runs. A key aspect of traceability is to ensure all fish is legally harvested, our process does this by knowing all potential vessel sources of fish in our products.
Where applicable, our website is forthcoming about multiple vessel traces and provides rationale.