Partner Profile: Fish Trax Marketplace
Oregon State University’s pioneering whole-chain seafood traceability and story telling application
The shared understanding of the importance of traceability through supply chains to create demand-pull scenarios for those fishers and fish farmers producing sustainable and responsible seafood brought together core Fishcoin and Fish Trax Marketplace members over 5 years ago. Since then they have been working together to provide end-to-end supply chain traceability and story telling to seafood supply chains in Australasia and South East Asia. Members of both organisations have travelled and linked fishers and farmers from countries such as Sri Lanka, Australia, and Indonesia to buyers and consumers in markets such as Singapore, Australia, the US, and Japan. This year, suppliers and processors in countries like China, Vietnam, Myanmar, and the Philippines are set to be added, and, hopefully, Madagascar as our first African nation.
So who are FishTrax Marketplace?
FishTrax Marketplace was developed through a collaborative effort of Advanced Research Corporation, Oregon State University, the Oregon Salmon Commission, and Ariel Seafoods. It is owned and operated by Fish Trax Systems, Inc, a private non profit 501 3c. After paying costs, all revenue goes to support collaborative fishery research.
Their goal is to build a community of trust among all of the links of seafood value chains — from fisherman to dealer to retailer to consumer. Through a transparent system, Fish Trax doesn’t only build trust but creates value for every participant — whether it is a fisherman or fishing family striving to tell the story about their family business, or a consumer seeking understanding about the origin of their seafood.
The Fish Trax application not only links consumers and producers, but also the dealers, restaurants, and retail shops “in between.” Research shows that when producers and consumers connect and share their experiences and needs, the entire marketplace benefits. In turn, this vital and valuable information supports sustainable communities and businesses, and contributes to the health of the resource.
The Fish Trax Marketplace is one of many services that Fish Trax Systems offers. Fish Trax is also a leading-edge electronic fishery information platform that revolutionises the way fisheries information is collected, analysed, and shared. The Fish Trax team, which includes fishermen, marketers, scientists, and technologists, work together to help connect and empower the entire seafood system — from resource manager to consumer.
Why are they a Fishcoin partner?
Whole-chain traceability systems like Fish Trax come at a cost, and someone in the supply chain needs to pay for the service. In developed nations, seafood supply chains are relatively short, they have access to technology, and the human and financial resource needed to employ technology. However, with most of our seafood emanating from developing nation fishermen, supply chains are mostly long and fragmented, and those at the beginning of these supply chains have limited access to the required resource or technology.
Fishcoin is designed to incentivise the collection of the much needed key data elements at critical tracking events through seafood supply chains. This can provide the much needed traceability to access markets and selected buyers, but it could also reward fishers and fish farmers for providing pictures of themselves, their boats or farms, and their story — the rich content of increasing interest to consumers. Thus Fish Trax and its subscribers could reward these fishers and fish farmers for providing both data critical for tracking and also the story telling elements that create demand pull for the supply chain’s products.
Further, the Fish Trax board have agreed to examine ways in which a share of future profits could also be shared with the governments from which the seafood emanates — this could help to pay for valuable fisheries research and development, or monitoring, compliance and surveillance activities. Thus, rather than developing nation governments taxing the small scale fishers and farmers for these costs, the market, which has benefitted from decades of over-cheap seafood that led to over-fished stocks, could also pay for activities that support the sustainability of the stocks we all rely upon.
Interested in becoming a Fishcoin partner?
Companies and organisations throughout the seafood industry are signing up almost daily to be rollout partners in the Fishcoin ecosystem. If you would like to know more about joining our community of partners please read through our white paper, and contact our team.
Please note the views expressed by the author may not necessarily represent the views of the Eachmile and Fishcoin teams or their partners. Members are encouraged to freely express their diverse ideas and perspectives.
