With increasing demand for seafood and the pressing need for sustainable practices, ensuring traceability and sustainability in the global seafood industry is more important than ever. To meet this challenge, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) has developed Fishery Traceability IDs, standardized identifiers backed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Global Record of Stocks and Fisheries (GRSF).
Traceability IDs have the potential to transform the way businesses track and validate source fisheries. By streamlining supply chain operations and providing clear assurance of sustainable sourcing, these Fishery IDs empower businesses to assess risks related to fish stock levels, environmental impact, and ethical practices. This innovation helps companies make more responsible, informed sourcing decisions, contributing to a more transparent and sustainable future for the seafood industry.
Fishery IDs have been successfully piloted in supply chains of Philippines blue swimming crab and South Africa yellowfin tuna and swordfish entering the North American market. These pilot programs have demonstrated the effectiveness of the Fishery IDs in improving traceability from the origin of catch to the consumer, contributing to the overall goal of protecting marine ecosystems and ensuring sustainability.
Benefits of Fishery IDs
1. Responsible sourcing: Fishery IDs can unlock risk metrics on fish stock health, environmental impacts, and the risks of illegal or unsustainable practices in source fisheries. This data enables businesses to better manage risks associated with sourcing seafood.
2. Standardization and Efficiency: Fishery IDs help standardize traceability, interoperability, and operational efficiency across the supply chain, similar to SWIFT and IBAN codes in the banking industry. They ensure that seafood products can be traced back to their origins, allowing businesses to build consumer trust and verify the sustainability of the source fisheries.
3. Market Access: By adopting Fishery IDs, businesses can gain better access to international markets by establishing connections with retailers and markets that prioritize responsible sourcing. The ability to demonstrate sustainability through Fishery IDs can open doors to new markets and enhance brand image.
Services offered through Fishery IDs
Fishery IDs go beyond simple traceability. They are part of a suite of services designed to support sustainability, transparency, and operational efficiency throughout the seafood supply chain. SFP can support companies looking to adopt and integrate Fishery IDs in the following ways:
1. Mapping of source fishery data to the Fishery IDs: SFP will first review your company’s seafood products and map them to validated Fishery IDs, to better enable tracking of the source fishery for each product.
2. Validated Fishery IDs
- Existing Fishery IDs: If a fishery profile already exists on the FishSource platform for the source fishery, SFP can provide you with the relevant Fishery ID.
- New Fishery IDs: For fisheries without existing profiles, SFP will create a new FishSource fishery profile, provide a temporary ID, and then issue a final ID once the new fishery is validated by FAO.
- Monitoring of IDs: SFP will monitor your company’s source fishery data to check if there are any changes in sourcing related to species, management and assessment area, etc., and provide your company with any updated Fishery IDs
3. Sustainability Metrics: SFP can provide your company with risk ratings on environmental impact, stock health and management, and human rights risk indicators associated with your source fisheries. With standardized sustainability information and improvement recommendations, your company will be able to make more informed seafood sourcing decisions and report publicly on progress.
Join the future of sustainable seafood
Fishery IDs represent a powerful step forward in making the global seafood industry more sustainable, transparent, and responsible. Businesses that adopt these standardized IDs are not only supporting the health of marine ecosystems, but are also setting themselves up for success in markets that value traceability and sustainability.
For more information on how SFP can support your business in using the Fishery Traceability IDs, please contact:
Mercedes Mendoza, Advisory Services Sales Director, mercedes.mendoza@sustainablefish.org
Braddock Spear, Global Policy Director, braddock.spear@sustainablefish.org