At Seafood Producers Cooperative, we are tracing the fish back to each boat that caught it. We work with a fleet of small boats, each of which frequently catches multiple species on any given trip out to the ocean. So, keeping track of the source of each individual fish from all of the small boats we work with is not an easy feat. In this video, our Inventory Manager Greg McGuire talks about how that is done and why it’s important.
Some of our customers recently noted that they received Stingray in their orders, as they saw it marked on the labels. But note that it’s Captain Ivan Grutter’s boat the F/V Stingray that is indicated on the label and you can watch Ivan talking about the Stingray in this video. Putting the name of the boat that caught the fish on each label has been a project we’ve been working on for a few years.
There are other boats with fun names in our co-op’s fleet—the Orca, the Silver Lady, the Brat (Greg’s uncle’s boat), etc. These boats and the families that fish them are essentially who we are. When we put the name of a boat on the fish you eat, this means each fishermen puts extra pride into the work they did to make sure you have a fantastic meal. An important component of sustainable seafood is knowing the source of where the fish comes from—that way an end consumer can decide if they feel comfortable about the source or not. Did the fish come from an illegal fishery? A dirty fishery? A fishery with slave workers? A fishery with fish stocks that are not scientifically surveyed and managed for sustainability? The end consumer can decide if they are okay with the process of how the fishery is managed and where their fish is caught if they have a good idea of where the fish came from.
It’s important to know the source of your fish to know it’s coming from a source you trust. Sustainable seafood for us is fishing in a way that our grandchildren can fish in the same way and enjoy the same lifestyle. Sustainable seafood is harvested in a way that ensures the long-term health and productivity of fish populations and the ecosystems they inhabit. This includes minimizing negative impacts on the environment and ensuring that future generations can enjoy seafood. In our case, fishery quotas are set by treaties and using biological surveys of fish stocks.
Our traceable fish make for sustainable seafood.
See more about how our traceable seafood works in this video.
