SFP and Seafood Souq sign MOU to strengthen seafood supply chain transparency across the Middle East and beyond

Barcelona, April 22, 2026. Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) and Seafood Souq signed a Memorandum of Understanding at Seafood Expo Global in Barcelona today, committing to collaborate on traceability and sustainability solutions to help seafood supply chain actors identify harvest sources and understand sustainability risks, with a focus on the Middle East, North Africa and the broader MENA region.

This marks SFP’s first formal partnership in the region, reflecting the growing importance of the Middle East as both a major seafood trading hub and an emerging leader in supply chain transparency. This collaboration is enabled through Seafood Souq’s established digital infrastructure in the region, which is already supporting traceability across complex supply chains for hospitality, retail and government stakeholders.

Seafood Souq is a UAE-based technology company founded in 2018 that is reimagining the global seafood supply chain through digital tools designed to make seafood traceable, trustworthy and tradeable. At the heart of its platform is the SFS technology suite, a GDST-aligned traceability system that digitizes each step of the seafood journey from bait to plate, capturing the critical tracking events and key data elements required to comply with global standards, including FSMA 204 and EU Catch Documentation. Active in over 35 countries and recognized by the UAE Ministry of Economy as one of the country’s most promising technology innovators, Seafood Souq is building the infrastructure for a more transparent global seafood system.

SFP is a global nonprofit with over two decades of experience working with the seafood industry to drive measurable improvements in fisheries and aquaculture worldwide. At the heart of SFP’s approach is the conviction that market incentives are a powerful lever for sustainable change. To connect those incentives to real supply-chain decisions, SFP developed Seafood Metrics, a risk-based analytical platform that gives buyers and suppliers actionable insights on sourcing risks, supply reliability and sustainability performance. Backed by SFP’s FishSource database of fishery and aquaculture assessments, Seafood Metrics enables companies to identify where action is needed most, turning complex global data into decisions that reward responsible producers and drive improvement at source.

By connecting Seafood Souq’s on-the-ground traceability technology with SFP’s sustainability tools, the partnership will give supply chain actors in the MENA region access to end-to-end source information on seafood, backed by a trusted decision-support tool, linking traceability to verified sustainability assessments of the specific source fisheries behind the product.

“The Middle East is a critical node in the global seafood trade, and it is a region where the demand for transparency and responsible sourcing is growing rapidly. Seafood Souq has built something remarkable: a platform that makes traceability accessible and actionable across some of the world’s most complex supply chains. This partnership, our first formal one in the region, allows us to bring SFP’s risk-based sustainability analytics directly into that infrastructure.” – David Parreño Duque, SFP Partnerships Engagement Specialist

“Seafood Souq is proud to partner with Sustainable Fisheries Partnership on this important initiative. As global supply chains face growing pressure around transparency, compliance, and sourcing risk, the need for practical and credible traceability has never been greater. By combining Seafood Souq’s digital infrastructure with SFP’s sustainability expertise, this partnership will help seafood businesses make more informed, responsible and transparent sourcing decisions across the MENA region and beyond.” – Scott Chambers Seafood Souq CEO

The seafood industry faces significant transparency challenges: over 30% of seafood products are estimated to be mislabelled globally, while illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing continues to threaten marine ecosystems and undermine legitimate producers. This partnership directly addresses those challenges by combining real-time traceability with science-based risk assessment, giving every actor in the supply chain the clarity they need to make responsible sourcing decisions.