Seafood Souq and SFP Pioneer the Middle East's First Seafood Sustainability Partnership

At Seafood Expo Global 2026 in Barcelona, Seafood Souq and the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) formalised a strategic collaboration that signals a meaningful shift for seafood supply chains in the Middle East and beyond. Through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), both organisations are committing to a shared goal: making seafood supply chains more transparent, traceable, and ultimately more responsible.

This strategic collaboration comes at a pivotal moment. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is rapidly emerging as both a major seafood trading hub and a growing force in sustainability and compliance. Yet, like much of the global seafood industry, it faces persistent challenges ranging from fragmented supply chains to limited visibility into sourcing practices.

Bridging Traceability and Sustainability

At its core, the collaboration connects two complementary capabilities.

Seafood Souq brings its SFS technology suite—a GDST-aligned digital traceability platform that captures critical tracking events and key data elements from bait to plate. Already active in over 35 countries, SFS enables businesses across hospitality, retail, and government to digitise and verify their seafood supply chains in line with international standards such as FSMA 204 and EU Catch Documentation. Through its work advancing supply chain digitisation with major buyers, distributors, and public sector stakeholders, Seafood Souq has established itself as a trusted partner in modernising seafood trade and delivering scalable, data-driven traceability solutions across complex global networks.

SFP contributes its deep expertise in sustainability analytics. With more than 20 years of experience working alongside the seafood industry, SFP has developed tools like Seafood Metrics, a risk-based platform powered by the FishSource database. These tools translate complex environmental and fisheries data into clear, actionable insights on sourcing risks, supply reliability, and sustainability performance.

By integrating these systems, the collaboration creates a powerful feedback loop: traceability data informs sustainability assessments, and sustainability insights guide better sourcing decisions.

Why This Matters Now

Seafood is one of the most globally traded food commodities—and also one of the most opaque. It is estimated that over 30% of seafood products worldwide are mislabelled, while illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing continues to undermine both marine ecosystems and responsible producers.

For businesses operating in or trading with the MENA region, these challenges are becoming harder to ignore. Regulatory requirements are tightening, and consumers are increasingly demanding transparency around origin, sustainability, and ethical sourcing.

This is where the collaboration delivers tangible value.

By linking Seafood Souq’s SFS traceability tools and proven digital infrastructure with SFP’s sustainability analytics and risk-based insights, the partnership will connect supply chain actors to a more complete, end-to-end view of the seafood they source. This integration enables buyers and suppliers to better understand product origin and associated risks, moving beyond fragmented or manual processes toward structured, real-time insights that support compliance, reduce risk, and build trust.

A First for the Region

For SFP, this marks its first formal strategic collaboration in the Middle East—an important milestone that reflects the region’s growing strategic relevance in global seafood trade. For Seafood Souq, it reinforces its role not only as a technology infrastructure provider enabling traceability at scale across complex supply chains, but also as a key contributor to regional food security by strengthening supply chain resilience, improving source visibility, and supporting more reliable access to responsibly sourced seafood.

Together, the two organisations are not just addressing current gaps — they are helping shape a more connected and accountable seafood ecosystem in the region.

“The Middle East is a critical node in the global seafood trade, and it is a region where the demand for transparency and responsible sourcing is growing rapidly. Seafood Souq has built something remarkable: a platform that makes traceability accessible and actionable across some of the world’s most complex supply chains. This partnership, our first formal one in the region, allows us to bring SFP’s risk-based sustainability analytics directly into that infrastructure.” 

– David Parreno Duque, Partnerships Engagement Specialist, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership

Turning Insight into Action

The real impact of this collaboration lies in strengthening and extending the decision-making capabilities already enabled by Seafood Souq’s platform.

By integrating SFP’s science-based sustainability assessments into SFS, supply chain actors—from importers and distributors to retailers and regulators—will be able to access an added layer of verified risk and performance insights directly within their existing traceability workflows. This positions SFP’s tools as a powerful complement to Seafood Souq’s infrastructure, enhancing the depth of analysis available and further supporting more informed sourcing decisions that drive responsible fishing and aquaculture practices.

“Seafood Souq is proud to partner with Sustainable Fisheries Partnership on this important initiative. As global supply chains face growing pressure around transparency, compliance, and sourcing risk, the need for practical and credible traceability has never been greater. By combining Seafood Souq’s digital infrastructure with SFP’s sustainability expertise, this partnership will help seafood businesses make more informed, responsible and transparent sourcing decisions across the MENA region and beyond.”
– Scott Chambers, CEO, Seafood Souq 

Looking Ahead

As the global seafood industry continues to evolve, collaborations like this will play a critical role in building the infrastructure needed for a more transparent and sustainable future.

By combining digital traceability with sustainability intelligence, Seafood Souq and SFP are laying the groundwork for a supply chain where every product can be traced, every risk understood, and every decision made with confidence.

For the MENA region and the global market it connects to, that’s a step forward worth watching.

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