Establishing a Pathway for Middle Supply Chain Support of Electronic Monitoring Efforts in U.S. Fisheries
Background
Electronic monitoring and reporting efforts in U.S. fisheries have historically been led by harvesters, regulators, and researchers. Companies in the middle of the seafood supply chain have rarely been part of these efforts, in large part because individual companies often lack a direct line of sight to the vessels they source from and hold limited influence on their own. Sea Pact set out to identify how mid supply chain companies can act collectively to support electronic monitoring in the U.S. fisheries they depend on. With funding from the National Fish and Wildlife’s Electronic Monitoring and Reporting Grant Program, Sea Pact worked with eight member companies and an independent consultant to map shared sourcing, identify priority fisheries, and define concrete opportunities for collective action to further advance electronic monitoring in U.S. fisheries.
Grant Project Goal(s)
This project was designed to accomplish three goals:
Map the U.S. fisheries that participating member companies source from, using species name, harvest region, gear type, management body, and annual volume to identify where members hold the greatest collective influence.
Connect those priority fisheries to NOAA's Regional Electronic Technologies Implementation Plans in order to pinpoint specific electronic monitoring challenges, needs, and project opportunities.
Build a roadmap for collective action, including recommendations for supply chain engagement and enables members to directly support electronic monitoring efforts aligned with their sourcing.
Key Learnings
The project highlights how companies in the middle of the supply chain, even without direct connections to fishing vessels, can collaborate to advance electronic monitoring in ways no single company could achieve alone. By aggregating sourcing data across eight members, Sea Pact identified a small number of strategically important fisheries where collective volume and shared demand create meaningful influence. Concentrating effort on these priority fisheries allows Sea Pact to direct limited resources where they can generate the most change.
The analysis also clarified the range of ways members can contribute. Where direct funding is not possible, members can still advance adoption by encouraging harvesters to participate in pilot programs, supporting consumer facing messaging that highlights fisheries using electronic monitoring, and recognizing electronic monitoring as progress toward their own sustainability goals. Sea Pact will continue to explore the engagement opportunities recommended in the report across its membership, contingent on capacity and available funding. Taken together, these findings offer a proof of concept that other mid supply chain collaborations can build on.
Read the full analysis and recommendations in the consultant’s report: U.S. Fishery Sourcing Analysis & Electronic Monitoring Opportunity Roadmap