Community Catch

Thumbs up all round!! We are thrilled to announce that Community Catch is now a registered charity, focused on education and training, as well as environment/conservation/heritage. Our mission is rooted in giving back to the small scale fisheries community, ensuring equity and support where it’s needed most. Our business model has always been about creating more equity within seafood supply chains. We are dedicated to supporting SSF on the ground, not just by improving supply chains but by providing education and training that uplifts the entire community. Additionally, we foresee our program having an educational component included, namely the education of the general public on aspects such as the origins of their seafood, the journey of a product from a small-scale fisher and general awareness on sustainable seafood. As we move toward our official launch, we are incredibly grateful to our trustees for their guidance and support in setting us on the right path. Their leadership ensures that we remain true to our mission and continue making a meaningful impact. (Registered Charity Number: 1209612) Ruo W.

Thumbs up all round!! We are thrilled to announce that Community Catch is now a registered charity, focused on education and training, as well as environment/conservation/heritage. Our mission is rooted in giving back to the small scale fisheries community, ensuring equity and support where it’s needed most. Our business model has always been about creating more equity within seafood supply chains. We are dedicated to supporting SSF on the ground, not just by improving supply chains but by providing education and training that uplifts the entire community. Additionally, we foresee our program having an educational component included, namely the education of the general public on aspects such as the origins of their seafood, the journey of a product from a small-scale fisher and general awareness on sustainable seafood. As we move toward our official launch, we are incredibly grateful to our trustees for their guidance and support in setting us on the right path. Their leadership ensures that we remain true to our mission and continue making a meaningful impact. (Registered Charity Number: 1209612) Ruo W.

We’re still buzzing from the excitement of our brand-new webinar series, Reel Talks, which launched this month to a fantastic reception! With the public consultation on our standard in full swing, we wanted to create a space where you could dive deeper, ask questions, and connect directly with us—and what better way than a series of engaging webinars? We hosted four sessions in total, with two tailored specifically for producers and two focused on market insights. Attendees were treated to a wealth of information covering all aspects of the small-scale fisheries supply chain. The Reel Talks webinars also offered a unique opportunity to interact with the Community Catch development team and hear from our amazing guest speakers. We had the pleasure of welcoming Heri from our Indonesia tuna pilot fishery, Gert Le Roux from Woolworths South Africa, Katie Cubben from our Orkney crab pilot fishery, and Linda Wood from Marks and Spencers. Their insights brought the topics to life and sparked some truly engaging discussions! Reflecting on the series, Momo Kochen from our CC development team shared, “These webinars were a fantastic chance to connect with the broader community, addressing lingering questions and easing concerns about our standards. The feedback we received is invaluable as we continue to refine our approach.” Andy Hough also highlighted the “thought-provoking questions” raised during the sessions, which underscored the challenges facing small-scale producers and the growing interest in Community Catch as a solution. Our guest speaker, Katie Cubben, couldn’t agree more. She shared, “It was a wonderful platform to showcase the sustainability of our crab and lobster fisheries. We’re hopeful this will bolster our presence in UK markets and beyond.” Missed the live webinars? No worries! We’ll be uploading the recordings to our website soon, so you can catch up at your convenience. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us—we couldn’t have done it without you!

This is a reminder that our Open Consultation on our Standard is closing soon!! Click the link below to share your thoughts on the Community Catch standard. Closing on the 29th August 00:00 PST

Thrilled to see the Community Catch self-assessment and standard in action! Big thanks to the team at ABALOBI. We can’t wait to see your progress!

The second batch of our ‘Reel Talk’ webinars is happening this Thursday 15th. The first round was such a success so if you missed it, don’t worry, there’s still time to join one of Thursdays webinars. The morning session will be tailored to markets, and the afternoon session will be more tailored to producers. But everyone is welcome! The afternoon session will also be available with Spanish translation! 🇪🇸 Come and learn more about our public consultation and standard and meet the development team! We look forward to seeing you there on Thursday 🎣

A reminder to sign up to one of tomorrow’s webinars. The producer orientated one at 8:00am BST, and the markers orientated one at 4:00pm BST. Can’t make those? No worries, we’ve got more webinars coming up on the 15th! Check out the post below with the sign up links. We look forward to seeing you online tomorrow! 🎣

Have you heard about our new webinar series, 'Reel Talk' ? In the midst of a public consultation on our standard, we wanted to provide people with the opportunity to learn more and ask questions to us directly. These webinars will give you a chance to engage with the Community Catch development team as well as hearing from our guest speakers. These speakers will enlighten you with first-hand experience from our ongoing pilot fisheries, as well as motivations for engaging with Community Catch as a market player. We are hosting two identical webinars focussed on markets/supply chains, and two identical webinars focussed on producers. Whilst there will be a slight focus for these respective stakeholders, everyone is welcome. Please see the links below to sign up to one of the webinars, and also check out our public consultation webpage here: https://lnkd.in/evQGPjE4 We look forward to engaging with you! Producer Webinar 1/08 8am: https://lnkd.in/egdtreg5 Producer Webinar 15/08 4pm: https://lnkd.in/eFebCQZr Markets Webinar 1/08 4pm: https://lnkd.in/eddX_NW9 Markets Webinar 15/08 8am: https://lnkd.in/evmWnScP

Introducing our fourth beta trial fishery - South Africa Yellowtail Fishery. For this trial, we have partnered with two parts of the yellowtail amberjack (Seriola lalandi) fishery: one with ABALOBI, the smaller fishing vessels (approximately 2 crew), and the other part is coordinated under Woolworths consisting of larger vessels (though still small-scale in nature) with different gears. Each of these larger vessels has an average of 7-10 crew onboard .The fishery produces around 200 tonnes of yellowtail each year. Under the Abalobi supported portion of the fishery the Struisbaai Traditional Line Fisher’s Association (STLFA) is active, which has a constitution and membership structure, supporting a collaborative structure between fishers.In terms of supply chain, a large proportion of the yellowtail catch is sold via the ABALOBI marketplace, mostly to local buyers. ABALOBI works with the fishers to facilitate market access, traceability, cold chain, logistics, and fair remuneration for fishers and fish workers. Outside of ABALOBI, fishers sell a portion of their catch to intermediaries who pay variable rates per kg and do not offer traceability or a robust cold chain. The main barriers the yellowtail fishery faces is that local market demand remains limited, high overheads, and continued reliance on middle-persons. The fishery’s main aspirations therefore are an expansion of national market demand, as well as establishing consistent export demand. To complement the self-assessment process, we are also deploying a trial version of our fisher survey in this fishery. This aims to gather independent data from fishers to complement and verify the information submitted in the self-assessment by the fishery. Once the self-assessment is complete, NFS, our Conformity Assessment Body (CAB) partner will evaluate how this fishery measures up to the current Community Catch standard and this will lay the basis for the development of an improvement plan, which we hope to support the fishery to engage in, as it moves towards environmental and social responsibility. Stay tuned for updates on this trial fishery, and we hope you have enjoyed this mini series!

Introducing our third beta trial fishery - Maumere Fishery in Indonesia To maximise exploring the efficacy of the Community Catch standard in a variety of fisheries, we have trials going on in fisheries of different sizes, gear usage, target species etc. In this instance, we are exploring how well a fishery, which is already MSC certified, does in the Community Catch program and whether there are advantages for the fishery. The fishery is expansive, targeting yellowfin and skipjack within archipelagic waters using pole and line and handline gears, though the assessment is currently only focused on the Pole and line portion of the fishery. One of the main barriers the fishery faces is that there is no shipping route for direct export from Maumere. Instead, exports usually transit Surabaya to replace 400 feet containers, making logistic costs far higher. When asked if Community Catch would be able to offer the fishery new or better opportunities they said “Yes if market demands it in the future, it might be more accessible for small scale fisheries.” Maumere fishery aspires for recognized quality and better price with regards to market access. So we asked them why they are engaging with Community Catch, to which they said “Because it might be a good alternative ecolabel for SSF’s; more affordable and covers more aspects than just environmental sustainability." When asked about their first impressions of Community Catch, they responded noticing a change from last year's alpha trials and noted ‘more questions and more details… but it’s in a good way that captures more info on the fishery itself and the fisher’. The Conformity Assessment Body (CAB) SCS global is working with Community Catch on this fishery. The team has just started to dig into the self-assessment evaluation. Stay tuned for updates on this trial fishery, and keep an eye out for our next fishery profile. https://lnkd.in/eTm7JtMP