Marketing local seafood using a near real time information system

Contemporary demands on fishery managers and the seafood industry require innovative approaches for supplying resource and product information.  Project CROOS (Collaborative Research on Oregon Ocean Salmon) is an industry-science partnership designed to address the recent closures of the West Coast salmon fishery while sharing information in near real time. The project produces genetic, oceanographic, and fishery information to reduce harvests of weak salmon stocks while improving economic performance of the industry.   A fundamental feature of the project is the use of barcodes to track harvested fish and related information.  A website -- PacificFishTrax.com -- maps, analyzes, tracks, and communicates information for scientists, resource managers, fishermen, processors, retailers, consumers, and the public.   This presentation summarizes the results of a pilot test using the PacificFishTrax concept to market local seafood. Computer-based kiosks were designed that allowed customers to scan product barcodes and meet the fishermen and processors who harvested and processed their “locally caught seafood.”  The project was conducted with a food retailer featuring “nature-based” local foods.    Implications for sharing near real time fisheries and seafood information using electronic tools are discussed and implications for the future of fishery and seafood management evaluated.