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Sea Pact Announces New Board Chair

1/7/2021

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January 7, 2021 – Sea Pact, a pre-competitive collaboration of ten leading American and Canadian seafood companies working together to drive industry sustainability progress, have a new chair for their Advisory Board. Mary Smith, Director of Sustainability at Inland Seafood Corporation has been elected as the new chair at Sea Pact’s virtual annual meeting which is taking place virtually this year over two days, January 5 & 12, 2021. “Kicking off 2021, Sea Pact is delighted to announce Mary’s selection by her peers to this leadership role,” said Rob Johnson, Managing Director of Sea Pact.
Mary Smith has been the Sustainability Director at Inland Seafood for the past 3 years. Prior to her position at Inland, Smith held marketing and sustainability roles at Santa Monica Seafood and The Plitt Company. Inland Seafood, based in Atlanta, Georgia, is the largest full-line processor and distributor of more than 2,000 fresh, frozen, smoked and specialty seafood items in the Southeast United States.
“I am thrilled to serve as the chair of Sea Pact’s board, especially during such an interesting time in our industry,” stated Smith. “Sea Pact’s focus on pre-competitive collaboration to support member companies and positively impact the global seafood industry has never been more relevant. I believe strongly in the transformative power of this organization and the enthusiasm of the people who continue to build it. The opportunity to work with passionate and dedicated colleagues who share the dame goals is so rewarding both professionally and personally and I am excited about what’s next for all of us.”
“Sea Pact’s innovative seafood business collaboration model continues to advance as a dynamic industry leadership platform, as we reinforce our resolve to work together to face the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19 and work to catalyze an industry-wide transformation to a more sustainable future in seafood,” stated Johnson. “I’m very excited to have Mary elected to the role as chair of the Advisory Board for a two year term, and look forward to working closely with her to drive new initiatives of our organization forward. We expect her passionate energy, deep supply chain and sustainability knowledge and experience, bright ideas, and strong commitment to the industry will bring great value to our collective efforts and outcomes.”
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Sea Pact’s annual meeting will establish next steps for the coming year focused on elevating sustainability in the seafood industry by engaging in innovative projects, collaborative partnerships, and transformational processes to drive positive change in fisheries and aquaculture systems across the global seafood supply chain.

About Sea Pact:
Together, Sea Pact members collective buying power would make them the 4th largest seafood company in North America and the 15th largest seafood company in the world. The unified members of Sea Pact are:  Euclid Fish Company, Fortune Fish & Gourmet, Inland Seafood, Ipswich Shellfish Group, J.J. McDonnell, North Atlantic Inc., Santa Monica Seafood, Seacore Seafood, Seattle Fish Company, and Stavis Seafoods. Sea Pact receives sustainability council from non-profit organizations FishWise, Ocean Outcomes, and Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, and operational support from impact accelerator Multiplier. To learn more about Sea Pact visit www.seapact.org and follow on twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
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Sea Pact - GDST Joint Statement

9/8/2020

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​Sea Pact and GDST:
Working Together for Seafood Traceability
 
September 8, 2020
 
Sea Pact and the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST) are today announcing a joint work program in support of efficient, verifiable, and interoperable seafood traceability.  The new work program represents an important step forward for the seafood industry towards ensuring that all seafood products bought and sold around the world are traceable to legal and responsible production practices.
 
This Sea Pact - GDST collaboration will focus on implementation of the recently released GDST 1.0 Standards and Guidelines for Interoperable Seafood Traceability, the first-ever global standards designed to make seafood traceability systems interoperable and verifiable worldwide.  Sea Pact is proud to announce that as of this date, all ten of its member companies have formally adopted the GDST standards and have declared their intention to implement them.  Sea Pact members are further committed to doing their part, including bringing forward their collective work on key data reporting in an effort to promote more effective supply chain data transfer and help drive efficient and reliable industry traceability.  Through their new work program, Sea Pact and GDST will coordinate their efforts to improve seafood traceability, increase the availability of information needed from the seafood supply base, and harmonize data reporting.  As part of this program, the GDST secretariat will work with Sea Pact member companies to provide technical support for phased, business-smart implementation of the GDST standards.  Sea Pact companies will use their collective voice to encourage industry-wide adoption of the GDST standards, and will emphasize the collection of priority “key data elements” as an early implementation step in concert with the rest of the seafood industry over the years ahead.
 
Sea Pact and GDST jointly recognize that effective seafood traceability is fundamental to the future of a legal, sustainable, and responsible seafood industry.  But achieving interoperable and verifiable traceability on a worldwide basis cannot be done without cooperation and standardization across global supply chains. As leading companies from the middle of the supply chain, Sea Pact members have wide industry experience with data reporting challenges through a complex diversity of customer requirements as well as a dependence on upstream producers to provide relevant and verifiable information.  Sea Pact recognizes the efficiency and reliability that would come with industry-wide adherence to the GDST standards, and GDST is committed to supporting Sea Pact in their industry leadership on the vitally important issue of seafood traceability.
 
 
Background
 
Sea Pact is a pre-competitive collaboration of leading North American seafood companies dedicated to driving stewardship and continuous improvement of social, economic, and environmental responsibility throughout the global seafood supply chain. Sea Pact’s vision is for a vibrant and resilient industry in which all seafood is produced, traded, and consumed responsibly.  Sea Pact’s member companies are:   *Euclid Fish Company, Fortune Fish and Gourmet, Inland Seafood, Ipswich Shellfish Group, J.J. McDonnell, North Atlantic, *Santa Monica Seafood, *Seacore Seafood, Seattle Fish Company, and *Stavis Seafoods.  Taken together, Sea Pact companies represent the fourth largest seafood company in North America, and the 15th largest in the world.  Four of Sea Pact’s ten member companies (with asterisks, above) also participated in the multi-year GDST drafting process.
 
The GDST is a major global seafood industry forum convened in 2017 to draft the first-ever, industry-led global standards for interoperable and verifiable seafood traceability.  After three years of consensus-based process among more than five-dozen seafood industry companies, the GDST 1.0 standards were formally released in March of this year. 
 
The GDST Standards are designed to allow thousands of companies across the global seafood industry share traceability information seamlessly and reliably.  The standards focus on an agreed set of “key data elements” that define the baseline information to be shared through traceability systems, along with detailed technical standards for how digital traceability information should be capture, formatted, and transmitted.  Mid-supply chain companies face especially complex challenges as they must collect information from many diverse suppliers and then meet multiple and often diverging information demands originating with consumers, NGOs, and regulations.  An important goal shared by Sea Pact and GDST is to help make traceability and data reporting more reliable and efficient.
 
For more information about Sea Pact and the GDST, please visit their websites:
 
https://www.seapact.org/members.html          https://traceability-dialogue.org/
 
 
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Seafood2030 Issue Brief, Vol. 2

9/8/2020

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How Collaborative Leadership is Turning Seafood into the Protein of the Future​

Sea Pact is a proud member of the Advisory Board of Seafood2030.
 
You can find the whole brief here:  Seafood2030 Issue Brief, Volume 2
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Seafood2030 Issue Brief, Volume 1

7/2/2020

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Have you seen the first Issue Brief from Seafood2030?  We’re looking forward to seeing what the future holds for FIP’s and other approaches to ensuring a responsible and accessible supply of seafood for the world.
 
We’re also glad to see Sea Pact Board Member Richard Stavis sharing his point of view in this informative brief.
 
“FIPs are really an emerging science, especially in sectors like squid and octopus, so insights learned from these projects are invaluable,” Stavis Seafoods Chief Sustainability Officer Richard Stavis said. “The SRs play a crucial role in that they enable monitoring of improvement projects and information sharing on improvements across a sector. They also serve as a signpost, alerting participants to FIP activities and highlighting opportunities for supply chain stakeholders to engage in improvements.”
- Richard Stavis, Chief Sustainability Officer, Stavis Seafoods
 
Sea Pact is a proud member of the Advisory Board of Seafood2030.
 
You can find the whole brief here:  Seafood2030 Issue Brief, Volume 1


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Sea Pact Helps provide PPE for Peruvian Fishermen

6/18/2020

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For the last 3 months, Sea Pact members have been getting together on Zoom to share stories, support each other, and collaborate on strategies to help keep our employees safe, healthy, and happy at work.
Despite early difficulties sourcing PPE for our teams, most of us now have access to a steady supply of quality facemasks and shields, high tech systems for taking and tracking temperatures, gloves, and plenty of sanitizer options for ourselves and our facilities. Every Sea Pact member has also found ways to offer support to local communities.

In Maryland, the team at J.J. McDonnell worked with customers to supply overnight teams at Sinai Hospital with meal deliveries of featuring crab cakes, and in the Windy City, Fortune Fish & Gourmet donated a truck, a worker and seafood to a local pantry. Inland Seafood’s team in New Orleans has been cooking together every Friday to supply essential workers with seafood meals, and on across the country, Euclid Fish Company, Ipswich Shellfish, North Atlantic Seafood, Santa Monica Seafood, Seattle Fish Company, Seacore Seafood, and Stavis Seafoods have supported their communities with initiatives such as donating fresh and frozen seafood to local food pantries and soup kitchens.

According to Sea Pact Chair Stacy Schultz “It’s been inspiring to see and share all the positive outreach that we’re all involved in. Seeing seafood companies coming together to help the industry is a trend that I’d like to see outlast this pandemic.”

But the reality is our seafood community is a global one. Many of the countries that we all source from have found it difficult to afford or access PPE. In some fishing communities, especially remote coastal villages, it feels almost impossible.

Which is why Sea Pact supported Future of Fish’s (FOF) recent fundraising campaign. According to FOF, this project is designed to supply Peruvian fishermen with “the necessary tools to safely open for business and provide fish, a vital source of nutrition, to the Peruvian population.”

FOF also reminds us

In Peru, small scale fisheries play a critical role in food security, supplying approximately 95% seafood consumed domestically. Sourcing of PPE and sanitation resources for businesses to open safely has been difficult in the developed world and even harder in countries like Peru where it is urgently needed.
It’s easy to join us in supporting this cause; but act today so that you can help FOF make the most of Global

Giving's Bonus Day! Just pull out your wallet and click here.

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Walmart, Major Retailers Call for Governments to Ensure Sustainably-Produced Tuna during COVID-19

5/12/2020

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Click here for full story from perishablenews.com.
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In the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic, 20 Sustainable Seafood Organizations Encourage Consumers to Buy Seafood and Support the Industry

4/25/2020

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Click here for Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions article.  
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Sea Pact Shares Strategies During COVID-19

4/21/2020

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  • Undercurrentnews Article: Powerful US, Canadian wholesale network Sea Pact shares COVID-19 strategies.

  • Walton Family Foundation Blog: Meeting Demand for Sustainable Seafood in a Time of Trial.

  • IntraFish Article: Some of America’s largest seafood companies just launched a campaign to rescue the sector.

  • SeafoodSource Article: Collaboration, “Buy American” efforts emerging from COVID-19 crisis.

  • SFP blog response to the CEA FIP report, includes a quote from Richard.

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Sea Pact Members Rally Together to Support Seafood Industry Challenges in the Wake of Covid-19 Crisis

4/21/2020

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Sea Pact Members Rally Together to Support Seafood Industry Challenges in the Wake of Covid-19 Crisis

March 24, 2020 - Sea Pact, a collaborative association of eleven leading American and Canadian seafood
companies working to drive industry sustainability progress, have resolved to work together to face the
unprecedented challenges of the Covid-19 global crisis.

We recognize that this is a two-fold crisis- the health crisis that is the virus, and an economic crisis, with profound impacts of widespread closures and cancellations, disrupted supply chains, and escalating uncertainty about how long these turbulent times will continue and what shifts will become part of a new normal for us all. Every link in the food chain is being affected, and as seafood distribution companies in the middle of the supply chain, Sea Pactmember businesses have the position and responsibility to support seafood producers, customers, each other and
our communities.

How is Sea Pact Responding?
While having to rapidly adjust business models and daily business decisions, we are supporting each other in the wake of this crisis. Sea Pact members are sharing where they are facing business challenges as well as their creative responses across multiple companies and geographies to share information and find innovative ways to adapt and build new best practices. “We have laid a strong foundation of trust from working closely together in noncrisis situations, and that ‘trust bank’ is allowing us to support each other’s ability to adapt our businesses and find and replicate creative solutions,” said Rob Johnson, Managing Director of Sea Pact. Sea Pact companies are responding with seafood discounts and donations to employees and partners, direct to consumer sales and home deliveries, pivots from food service to retail, developing seafood boxes, and promoting public heath safety. Flexibility is being extended to funded project partners for project deliverables and timelines.

Our Message to the Industry
Sea Pact is a respected thought leader in the sustainable seafood movement, and we need to rise to this challenge and amplify our desire to proactively drive positive change in the global seafood industry. By showing leadership and helping each other as colleagues we aim to inspire strong community sense and collaboration for stakeholders across the whole diverse seafood supply chain. It’s more important now than ever to come together as a unified seafood industry in all the ways that we can. Food supply is an essential service to maintain, but beyond the immediate challenges of this global health and economic crisis, the world needs a stable long-term supply of seafood protein that is good for people and good for the planet. Our call to action is for all members of the seafood industry to work together now and maintain our responsibility to provide a critical healthy sustainable protein supply. A global crisis requires collective action and a global mindset to support institutional learning that will endure after the crisis. Sea Pact wants to ensure that the seafood industry and the people and communities it serves collectively get through this successfully, to not only survive, but thrive when the world emerges from this crisis.

About Sea Pact
Euclid Fish Company, Fortune Fish & Gourmet, Inland Seafood, Intercity Packers, Ipswich
Shellfish Group, JJ McDonnell, North Atlantic Inc., Santa Monica Seafood, Seacore Seafood, Seattle Fish Co., and Stavis Seafoods are the unified members of Sea Pact and share an active progressive approach to seafood sustainability commitments. Sea Pact receives sustainability counsel from non-profit organizations FishWise, Ocean Outcomes, and Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, and operational support from impact accelerator Multiplier. 
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Message from Sea Pact's Managing Director

4/21/2020

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One of the things I find really interesting about Sea Pact, is that there are a fair number of collaborations between businesses that are all in a particular sector of the seafood industry- for example, fishery improvement platforms around crab or tuna, but there really aren’t many initiatives that bring together businesses that are involved primarily because of their commitment to sustainability, but that also cut across different markets. I believe it gives Sea Pact a different kind of frame and potential than the narrower bandwidth entities have.
 
The Sea Pact tag line is United For A Sustainable Future. This is a group of respected, profitable, leading businesses in the middle of the supply chain– distributors & importers, that are uniquely positioned to affect change, both below and above them. They are literally and figuratively at the center of the industry. Many are long-running family businesses- rooted in the past and invested in the future- and their focus is on positive improvement across the whole seafood industry. 

Rob Johnson, Managing Director of Sea Pact

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