The Fisheye

Exposés of deception and abuse in food supply chains have become disturbingly routine. Seafood is no exception. We need to rebuild the systems and behaviors of the global interconnected brokers, corporations and governments that touch your food before it hits your plate. Pulling that off will require better data.

Talking trash on the docks is nothing new. But talking how to turn “trash fish”— fish that comes up in the net that is in less demand—into treasured bounty is a different story. And the idea offers hope for creating new markets that can benefit both fishers and fish.

Since the 1950s, the technology for catching, processing, and physically moving seafood across the globe has undergone a dramatic sophistication. However, as Sunday morning’s press conference organized by Norpac Industry revealed, the enormous activity enabled by those technological innovations has not been matched by high-tech information systems.

Walking the floor of Seafood Expo North America, the fabulous displays of fish from around the world are pure eye candy for any seafood lover. What those colorful fillets don’t reveal, however, are the human rights abuses that currently mar the global seafood trade.

This week, triple-bottom-line online site Triple Pundit, launched Sustainable Seafood: the Business of a Healthier Catch. And if the first article in the series is representative of what’s to come, this channel promises to push the envelope on how we re-imagine solutions to overfishing.