What is Salt?

Hundreds of efforts around seafood traceability exist. But they are not all aware of each other, nor able to learn from one another. SALT’s founding partners saw a need to bring people and ideas together since progress in this field had been thwarted by the disconnected endeavors. SALT’s goal is to gather these organizations into a cohesive community, working together to make seafood traceable.

Collaboration is challenging. So SALT facilitates learning events for people to connect in person, and maintains this traceability website to encourage online connections. SALT believes that sharing traceability knowledge virtually and in-person will spark creative solutions.

Increasing seafood traceability is critical because it’s one tool to help prevent illegal fishing, which reduces the sustainability of global fisheries and threatens the security of billions of people who depend on healthy fisheries for protein and income. Illegally caught fish can be mixed with legally caught fish at many points along the seafood supply chain. Unlawful fishing is often associated with other criminal activities such as human trafficking and forced labor. By increasing traceability in seafood supply chains, we can expose where illegal fishing occurs and prevent it from being sold on the global market.

Implementing traceability at every step of the seafood supply chain is a massive undertaking. Yet, SALT envisions a future with a more connected seafood community of industry, governments, and NGOs working together to promote comprehensive traceability systems. That outcome would grant wins for everyone: prevent illegally caught products from entering the market, strengthen sustainable fisheries management, and support equitable human welfare conditions for seafood laborers.