The Sea Pact 2023 Summary Report was published earlier this year, highlighting progress of the 2023 Work Plan activities.  Some key takeaways from the report include:

• For the first time ever, Sea Pact members collected source fishery data on a priority commodity (fresh/frozen tuna) and aggregated the data to identify collective improvement opportunities. The variety of fishery sources, as well as challenges in collecting some key data elements, prevented Sea Pact from identifying specific fisheries that multiple Sea Pact members sourced from, but the exercise did provide some valuable outcomes. Sea Pact members were able to identify long-line caught yellowfin tuna as a top priority and agreed to revise the Sea Pact Project Funding Guidelines to call for proposals around sustainability improvements in these fisheries. The data collection effort also enabled members to share with each other how they are tackling data gap challenges based on their positions in their respective supply chains. The exercise provided a strong foundation for future data collection efforts which will focus on snapper/grouper and mahi in 2024.
• Sea Pact’s project funding program remains a core initiative, with members electing to fund the following projects in 2023; 1) Otoliths-Lada Canada - Assessing a novel technique for age determination in three crab species in North America, 2) Ocean Strategies - To improve coordination and education between existing and future aquaculture industries and California’s commercial fishing community.  A new Sea Pact website was developed to provide a public platform for all funded projects to report their outcomes and lessons learned.
• Three Sea Pact members, Acme Smoked Fish, Fortune Fish and Gourmet, and Seattle Fish Company, participated in Seafood and Gender Equality’s inaugural Gender Equality Dialogues.
• Sea Pact is keen to grow its membership base to further the organization’s mission and impact, and welcomed two additional members, Acme Smoked Fish and Blue Ocean Mariculture, in 2023.

"Last year was a strong one for the organization," said Sam Grimley, Sea Pact Executive Director. "We funded some really innovative projects that aligned with our sustainability priorities, saw our membership grow, and we are now excited to build off of the member activities, such as the source fishery data collection, as we embark on strategic planning and goal setting in 2024 that will support our members' sustainability efforts."  Be sure to check out the full report as well as the 2024 Work Plan here.