On June 10th, Restaurant Zfood from Ecuador received its 10th shipment from their new fully verified and traceable artisanal fisher providers: Cooperativa Calamar. The Ecuadorian Snapper and Shrimp fisher, led by Espeusi, raised support from Re-Emprende backed by Coca Cola, GM and Ecuador’s largest retail chain La Favorita. This news broke only 3 weeks after Chile ushered its 13th fishing cooperative: Las Conchas, in Los Vilos. Their product called ‘Loco’ (Chilean Abalone) is now on the menu of Andres Turskey’s multiple iconic restaurants. The Las Conchas fisher organization led by Patricio Puayes has also had support from The Nature Conservancy and Government of Chile Fisheries support programs. Two months before, yet another co-op, Caleta Quintay sold their Conger Eel at a 15% premium beach price to Ocean Pacific, another one of Chile’s iconic seafood restaurants.
Why do we celebrate the existence of these success stories? As Stahl Suarez, Managing Director for Shellcatch Ecuador, recently shared: We are not only happy about what it means for our fishers Espeusi, Javier and Patricio Puayes, but also for the great impact that these organizations will have on the small-scale fisher ecosystem in the region. These success stories not only drive economic growth for these communities but they also become a movement and an inspiration for other fishers, NGO’s, and government support programs.
The momentum in the region towards sustainability is undeniable. This is not an outcome that is due to luck or magic. This is the culmination of a decade of NGO support programs, government assistance and of technological and market building that has prepared fishers for this movement.
Despite being one of the greatest exporters of seafood on the planet and one of the most populous fishing sectors, Latin-American fishers and the sustainable use of resources has been a disappointment. The region has always held great promise with its unique ocean currents abundant ocean resources, an established exporting market, and local government subsidies yet Fishers as a whole have failed. Despite all of the support, their productivity has stagnated largely due to misaligned government incentives, a lack of investment in education, and a lack of access to markets. All of these factors have contributed to fishers having unstable livelihoods, the lowest per capita incomes and in some communities, the highest poverty levels.
But the narrative is changing, thanks in large part due to consumer awareness, significant investments in the ecosystem and persistent entrepreneurial capabilities in the small-scale fisheries sector.
The first decade
By 2018, Shellcatch was a well known organization across countries in Latinamerica’s Pacific coast. Launched in 2011 in San Francisco, USA, Shellcatch had since established presence in Chile and Mexico and was closely tied to fishers Franklin Zepeda from Caleta San Pedro, Jose Barrios from Confepach, Miguel Ampuero from Ancud and Jose Medina from Baja California Sur. Shellcatch’s focus on using technology to create value added products to these fishers and help them get more for their catch is perfectly aligned with the region's small scale fisheries shortcomings. With the support of the IDB Labs, The Packard Foundation, The Nature Conservancy and WWF, AIE and other important partners, Shellcatch was then able to grow the company to Peru, Ecuador, Mexico and service small scale and industrial fishers in Belize, Costa Rica, French Guiana, Norway, California, Puerto Rico and Pakistan.
With more boots on the ground and a multi-country team, Shellcatch was able to successfully transfer verification and traceability technologies working with amazing fishers, governments and the NGO sector. Fishers were largely in Mahi, Grouper, Pomfret, Abalone and a large variety of Shellfish.
And while not core to the business model early on, some fishers who began working with Shellcatch, were critical in understanding how to fine tune the model. Unfortunately, though these early fishers were very committed, target markets were not developed and the role of Shellcatch in the supply chain was not clear yet. These included Carlos Villarroel from Chepu, José Miguel González from Hualaihue, Juvenal Triviño from Chauhuin, Juvenal Antillanca de Huiro, Rodrigo Jerez from Llico y Leonardo Carvajal from Tongoy in Chile, Lambayeque in Perú y Cooperativa Pesquera Don José Medina en México. These fisheries and NGO’s showed us that the technology and market access had a long way to go until Shellcatch would be a hotbed of change. Fortunately, now that the model is clear some of these fishers are coming back on board. We will also show promising results from the new generation as they are very quickly replicating success stories of initial fisher pioneers. Some early successes will have a lot to talk about from southern Chile’s Daniel Parra. Peru’s Ubaldo Tume from Cabo Blanco onboarded very recently thanks to Profonanpe and Oceana will soon show promising results in Belize and continue to replicate success stories at a much quicker rate.
Although it was not a central part of the Shellcatch business model, some fishermen joined our work from the beginning and were essential in understanding how we should adjust the model. Unfortunately, the business model deployment plan during these initial deployments was not fully tested and the role of Shellcatch in the supply chain was not yet clear. At that stage of development these fishers were critical champions that enabled Shellcatch’s ability to pivot, among them where: Carlos Villarroel from Chepu, José Miguel González from Hualaihue, Juvenal Triviño from Chaihuín, David Carcamo from Huiro and Rodrigo Jerez from Llico, all from Chile. A special tribute must be paid to Jose Barrios and Leonardo Carvajal, truly unique fisher innovators, serial entrepreneurs and regional leaders who for years have been role models for new generations of fishers. Both Jose and Leonardo made way for Shellcatch’s development as they knew that data for fishery management was critical for new generations of fishers. Leonardo has passed away recently and we feel his example and vision gives us strength to move forward in expanding what we started.
Trade Embargo - The Tech Catalyst
While improving fisher livelihoods and environmental impact was the focus in 2015 the USA threatened Mexico with a fisheries embargo. Shellcatch was the only small scale vessel electronic remote monitoring system. Based in California, the challenge was to create a completely rugged, versatile and low cost system. Going from a dedicated traceability system to a full on cloud with hardware and software as a service was not an easy task. Our R&D workshop south of San Francisco was critical as access to the latest technology and rapid turnaround engineering and manufacturing was the make or break of the technology. Though direct flights to Baja made logistics easier, deployment depended fully on local fishing communities opening their homes for local R&D. Gabriel Reyes, Shellcatch’s Business Development was critical in bringing fishers together in Mexico for initial deployments. He single handedly created a testing environment for the technology and a local laboratory for quick roll out. The Government of Mexico was also critical in the process as they had dedicated staff to the initiative and provided the resources necessary to reach over 300 vessels. Four years later with over 40 thousand videos the embargo was lifted.
A Bet on Tech
While Caleta San Pedro was the first to reach 30% premiums on their macha product it certainly wasn’t the only one. Shellcatch brought the hardware technology together with the birth of a unique seafood online market place, Frescapesca. Shellcatch began playing a crucial role in helping these fishers scale by adding seafood business analytics, fisher selection processes and access to new target markets. As a new alternative to fishers, NGO partners have bridged Shellcatch to the private sector to create scale, impact and supply chain disintermediation. Newly onboarded fishers like Franklin Zepeda took the initial price increases brought about by technological differentiation and realized the importance of adding value to products in multiple ways. These results created a push effect on his efforts and he began pooling resources from different sources to become one of the strongest artisanal success stories in the region. From then on leveraging technology and industrial production capabilities Franklin created his own processing plant and currently services large distribution companies. Now, we have fishers from Chile, Ecuador, Belize leading the way in using the highest standards of tech for their own market growth and the benefit of their local communities.
A place on Islands - the new catalyst
Island fishing communities are coming on board quickly with the need to protect their resources from local and international fishing pressure. As most coastal economies on the mainland, islands are very vulnerable to climate change. NGO and Government incentives are beginning to align as the survival of these communities are at risk. Shellcatch’s REM technology is implemented in these locations to make the full fishing process transparent, implant tools that help island ecosystems resilience and market differentiation. This is followed by the use of Electronic monitoring technology for additional fisheries management and local requirements. And finally with the online marketplace for full on value add. Today we are the leading platform on Galapagos Islands and soon to have a presence in Islas del Coco. These islands projects are a great source of pride for many fishers, NGO communities and the private sector as they all interact on a very small stretch of land and mostly around seafood. The eye-opening gains on the mainland are now fully deployed on islands showing the unique benefits of using a hub of solutions rather than specific disconnected solutions. We are very optimistic that the success of these fishers continues to breed the hard work of all critical NGO, Government and private sector players. Though the technological deployment is growing to serve different vessel needs we believe we are an integral part of a seafood movement towards an improved management of fisheries resources, better incomes and more transparency.
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