It’s important to know what we are consuming and to understand where our food comes from. With many brands and product ranges so readily available, transparency and understanding the impacts of our choices has never been more important and yet never been more difficult to understand.
IPNLF’s Sourcing Transparency Platform (STP) is an online platform that drives greater transparency in one-by-one tuna supply chains. It’s a world-first that publicly promotes the responsible sourcing practices of businesses supporting one-by-one tuna fisheries, it shows you exactly where your one-by-one tuna comes from and helps you to ensure the tuna you buy has social and environmental integrity. How’s that for transparency?!
“In short, the STP celebrates and promotes best practices implemented by companies to both consumers and the industry.”
– Zacari Edwards, IPNLF Social Responsibility Director
The STP is a highly visual and dynamic digital platform that makes understanding the journey of tuna products from the fishers on the water, to you in your kitchen more accessible as a consumer.
In order to promote the vital social, economic and environmental benefits of one-by-one tuna fishing, we need to address the lack of readily available data surrounding small-scale tuna fisheries. This is why IPNLF decided to launch the Sourcing Transparency Platform (STP), the first platform to drive greater transparency in one-by-one tuna supply chains throughout the globe.
The components of the STP are purposely aligned with various sustainability initiatives, such as: the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (the SSF Guidelines), and Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST).
Each business has its own approach to sustainable tuna and the STP brings all of this information together into one easily digestible space. The STP serves two main audiences: the sustainable seafood sector, and the conscious seafood consumer.
Industry partners within the seafood industry, who are members of IPNLF, can create a STP profile tailored to where or how they fit in the supply chain. Their profile offers the opportunity for our members to input data from their operations and showcase all the good work they are doing in improving their supply chains. They are also able to receive analysis on their traceability and best practice. The STP will help to identify and frame the areas where IPNLF can offer assistance to members through the Fisheries Improvement Toolbox (FIT). In addition, it facilitates further brand exposure, highlights important industry insights, and offers direct marketing support.
As a consumer, you have open access to view member profiles which include retailers, brands, distributors, processors, food services and fisheries. This allows you to find out exactly where your tuna is being sourced from and helps you to make more informed choices when buying tuna. The platform is designed to educate consumers, as well as industry, on the social and environmental sourcing credentials of one-by-one tuna fisheries, creating increased trust by showcasing responsible one-by-one fisheries throughout the globe in a fully transparent manner. In addition to this, the platform offers information about fisheries issues, technology solutions and proactive innovations. Informing end-consumers in this way results in broader public acknowledgement of what constitutes a sustainable and responsible tuna product.
Watch our STP presentation from Seafood Expo Global below
