A New Bedford, Massachusetts-based startup, KnowSeafood, has launched a new direct-to-consumer online seafood market that uses blockchain technology to ensure the traceability of the seafood sold.
The platform uses blockchain technology from VeChain, which “underpins KnowSeafood’s sustainability and traceability guarantee,” KnowSeafood said. Suppliers to the new market will upload harvesting, processing, and shipping information with unchangeable data underpinned with blockchain technology, allowing customers to directly access full-chain traceability of the products sold.
“At KnowSeafood, we are providing our customers with the highest standards of quality and traceability,” KnowSeafood CEO and Co-Founder Daniel McQuade said.
The platform, according to KnowSeafood, will reduce the length of the supply chain by allowing customers to purchase seafood directly from global harvesters or growers, “cutting out the middlemen.”
“Each piece of fish is shipped directly from trusted harvesters to KnowSeafood to the consumer, removing middlemen and opportunities for mislabeling,” the company said in a press release announcing the launch of the new seafood market. “Every harvester is required to adopt the use of blockchain technology, which further ensures traceability and provides the end consumer with complete transparency.”
The blockchain aspect of platform is linked with StoryBird, a supply chain transparency software that “provides consumers with interactive profiles of the fishermen, details their sustainability practices, maps out the exact location of the harvest, and reports the time and date when the seafood was landed, processed, shipped and delivered,” KnowSeafood said.
In addition to the platforms ability to deliver traceability, KnowSeafood said it is also determined to be environmentally friendly. The company is using a net-zero carbon emissions cold storage facility in NewBedford, and shipments to customers will be made in Vericool boxes that are 100 percent compostable and recyclable.
“KnowSeafood enables consumers to buy sustainable and fully traceable seafood from world-class suppliers of the freshest, highest-quality varieties including scallops, tuna, lobster, haddock, shrimp, mahi-mahi, sea bass, halibut, sablefish, and salmon,” the company stated.
Included among the products that will be available are salmon products that have been “enriched with Veramaris’ algae Omega-3 oil,” Veramaris announced. The KnowSeafood platform selected Aurora salmon as the company’s only Atlantic salmon brand, which is produced by Lerøy. That salmon, according to Veramaris, was raised on the company’s algae oil, and it being featured on an online platform means customers in all 50 U.S. states can now purchase salmon raised on algal oil.
“The launch of KnowSeafood and their choice to offer salmon raised on Veramaris’ algae oil is a significant breakthrough in the online seafood market,” Veramaris CEO Karim Kurmaly said. “Significant because for the first time ever a consumer anywhere in the U.S. can purchase sustainable salmon, rich in EPA & DHA Omega-3, online and have it delivered direct from farm to door.”
Other seafood being sold via the new platform include the Nordic Wild sea scallops from Nordic Inc., based in New Bedford, Massachusetts; Rocky Coast lobster tails from Owls Head, Maine; Maldhoni tuna from Maldives Quality Seafood Inc., based in the Maldives and Sri Lanka; Royal Greenland Chilean sea bass, supplied by Royal Greenland Chile; Alaska Gold halibut and sablefish, sourced from Seafood Producers Cooperative in Sitka, Alaska; and more.
