About | I-CADMUS — Seafood Integrity Framework

Our Mission

Make seafood honesty a verifiable, shared standard.

Seafood is the most fraud-prone food category in the world. One in five products globally doesn't match its label. Frozen prawns can be 40% water by weight. "Fish of the day" hides whatever is cheapest in the back of the freezer. And HACCP — the food safety standard the industry leans on — answers a question I-CADMUS asks first: is the product even what it claims to be?

The Seafood Consumer Association created I-CADMUS to give the industry, regulators, and the consumer a single shared language for seafood fraud. Seven categories. One taxonomy. Built from real supply-chain experience, not theoretical risk modelling.

Food safety has to start with truth in labelling. You can't make safe what you can't even identify.

The framework is paired with the forthcoming book Sea of Deception, an online certification programme, an open-data publications register, and a growing network of academic and industry partners — beginning with Bond University and expanding to one institutional partner per country.

Why now

Three forces are converging: DNA verification has become affordable enough for routine use, traceability technology has matured, and consumer trust in food labelling has reached a generational low. The next decade will be shaped by who provides the framework — and the language — to act. I-CADMUS is that framework.

Hon Prof Roy D. Palmer, MBA — 50+ years on the water.

Hon Prof Roy D. Palmer, MBA CEO, Seafood Consumer Association Author, Sea of Deception (2026)

Roy Palmer's career spans more than five decades across the global seafood supply chain — from working boats and processing floors to international standards bodies and academic appointments. He has served as Chief Executive of multiple industry-peak organisations, advised national regulators across three continents, and held honorary professorships at universities working on aquaculture sustainability.

I-CADMUS is the distillation of that work. After watching the same seven categories of fraud appear repeatedly across markets, supply chains, and decades — under different names, with different cover stories — Palmer set out to give the industry a single classifier. The framework you see published here is the result.

Selected appointments

Chief Executive Officer, Seafood Consumer Association
Honorary Professor, Bond University (aquaculture & food integrity)
Former CEO, Seafood Services Australia
Industry advisor, Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
Author, Sea of Deception (Seafood Consumer Association Press, 2026)

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The policy playbook I-CADMUS recommends to jurisdictions.

Each fraud category in the I-CADMUS taxonomy is countered by a corresponding policy lever. The five pillars below form the playbook every regulator working on seafood integrity should consider.

Pillar 01

Mandatory naming

End "fish of the day," generic species names, and ambiguous trade names. Adopt AS 5300 or equivalent at every point of sale, from menu to label.

Pillar 02

DNA verification

Routine, affordable species verification at customs, processing, and retail. The technology exists. The political will is the gap.

Pillar 03

Real penalties

Fines that exceed the margin gained by fraud. Repeat offences trigger trading suspensions. Without consequence, classification is theatre.

Pillar 04

Supply-chain transparency

End-to-end traceability from vessel to plate. QR-linked records that cannot be retroactively edited. Open auditability.

Pillar 05

Consumer rights

The right to know what species you're buying, where it came from, and how it was harvested — protected in law, not by aspiration.

The full playbook

All five pillars are detailed in Sea of Deception, with implementation case studies and recommended legislative language.

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A timeline of the framework's development.

1976

Roy Palmer enters the seafood industry

Beginning a career across boats, processing, retail, peak industry bodies, and international standards work — building the lived experience the framework would later be drawn from.

2001

Australian Standard AS 5300 adoption work begins

A multi-year campaign to introduce mandatory species naming standards across Australian seafood retail. The work surfaces the gaps that I-CADMUS would later fill.

2018

Seafood Consumer Association founded

An independent body to advocate for transparency, accuracy, and integrity in seafood labelling — answerable to consumers, not to industry incumbents.

2023

I-CADMUS framework drafted

The seven-category taxonomy is formalised after years of pattern-matching across investigations, supply-chain audits, and case-study work.

2025

Bond University academic partnership

Bond becomes the first academic partner, leading research and certification delivery. The "one institutional partner per country" expansion model is set.

2026

Sea of Deception published · Framework launches publicly

The framework, the book, the certification, and the open-data publications register all go live together — the public release of a decade of work.

The people behind the framework.

A team drawn from industry, academia, regulation, and consumer advocacy.

Hon Prof Roy D. Palmer, MBA

CEO & Founder

Author of Sea of Deception. Five decades in the global seafood industry.

Daryl K.

Director, Training & Programs

Leads the I-CADMUS certification programme and university partnership delivery.

Sarah M.

Head of Standards

Coordinates AS 5300, FRDC, and Codex alignment across the framework.

James T.

Industry Liaison

Works with retail, foodservice, and processor partners on audit deployment.

Anna L.

Research Lead

Leads case-study verification and DNA-testing research with academic partners.

Michael C.

Consumer Advocacy

Heads the consumer-facing tools: scorecard, quiz, and the public reporting channel.

Built on five decades on the water — for everyone downstream of it.