The seafood sector operates with deep structural opacity. Seafood moves through one of the longest and most complex supply chains in the food system, from wild-capture or aquaculture sites to ports, processors, exporters and importers, distributors, and finally retailers. Each time a product changes hands, new information is generated. Yet there is no globally harmonised data standard for catch documentation, processing records, or cold-chain monitoring. As a result, much of this information is lost or becomes disconnected as the product is moved and transformed.

When fragmented data becomes systemic risk

The result is a supply chain with fragmented and scattered information and no mechanism to connect it into a single verifiable thread. The consequences of this opacity are significant. When data is incomplete or disconnected, transparency breaks down, making it difficult to verify where a product was caught, how it was handled, or whether it meets sustainability standards and regulatory requirements.

It also creates a space for Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing to persist. Vessels operating in marine protected areas can introduce illicit catch into the supply chain because there is no unified digital record to flag inconsistencies or gaps. The environmental impact is substantial: coral reef damage, depleted fish stocks, and distorted markets that disadvantage responsible producers.

For companies across the seafood value chain, this lack of transparency translates into operational inefficiency, heightened quality and business risks, missed economic opportunities, and rising compliance pressure. It also undermines their ability to meet standards like MSC certification that retailers depend on for credible sustainability claims.

Across the industry, the data highlights clear opportunities to strengthen the system:

• Around 36% of products are mis-labelled or fraudulent*, creating direct risks for food safety, consumer trust, and dietary requirements.

• An estimated 20% of global catch is linked to IUU fishing**, representing stolen resources and often concealing human rights abuses.

• $3 trillion in assets and value are at risk***, exposing companies to liabilities, reputational damage, and the destabilisation of the sector as a whole.

With such a high level of data fragmentation, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven supply chain orchestration is gaining traction as a way to take vast, inconsistent datasets and turn them into coherent, actionable insights for decision-makers.

Ocean Orchestra: Leveraging AI for better supply chain orchestration

Traceability is becoming a top priority across the seafood industry. Buyers such as retailers and food distributors are under growing pressure to verify origin, sustainability practices, and handling conditions; suppliers face rising expectations to demonstrate responsible and compliant practices; and consumers are increasingly looking for trustworthy information about where their seafood comes from and how it was handled.

As the seafood industry pushes for greater transparency and accountability, AI is emerging as a valuable tool capable of making traceability achievable by connecting the many data sources that shape a product’s journey.

Ocean Orchestra is a good example of a company putting this into practice. The organisation is developing an operating system to upgrade the infrastructure that currently governs how seafood is bought, sold, and verified. Its platform is designed to help buyers and suppliers access the data and insights they need to make informed decisions, using AI to surface the most significant strategic opportunities, economic gains, operational risks for their seafood businesses, and to generate actions that address them.

A major part of this work involves integrating a vast and diverse data ecosystem. Ocean Orchestra has mapped over 650 relevant data sources, ranging from vessel-tracking databases to port records, processing and cold-chain information, human rights data and regulatory datasets. The organisation also has access to Automatic Identification System (AIS) and Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) signals, which communicate real-time data on elements like vessel identity, position, speed, and course. The company layers its modelling on top of the data, turning a vast amount of sources into a coherent, connected narrative. Rather than treating each source in isolation, the model is designed to bring structure to the information, identify gaps, and link related data points to assemble a reliable picture of a product’s movement through the supply chain.

Ocean Orchestra’s product makes end-to-end transparency practical at scale and lays the groundwork for efficient supply chain orchestration. Buyers can see the full journey of a product, and consumers gain clearer insight into what they are buying, strengthening trust in a previously opaque category.

A fully orchestrated seafood supply chain

With a unified record of how seafood moves from capture to consumer, the industry can begin to coordinate decisions and actions. This shift unlocks a range of benefits, including:

• Optimised economic opportunities and reduced risk. Suppliers and buyers can more easily identify business partners who fit their needs and unlock new economic opportunities. They can identify their top risks across seafood and understand the actions they can take to reduce them. A shared source of truth also reduces disputes and builds long-term commercial trust.

• More resilient and predictable operations. End-to-end visibility allows companies to anticipate disruptions rather than react to them. Weather events, port congestion, vessel delays, or cold-chain risks can be flagged early, enabling proactive adjustments and avoiding empty shelves.

• Stronger cold-chain integrity and reduced spoilage. Continuous monitoring and AI-driven anomaly detection can help protect temperature-sensitive products, reducing waste and improving quality.

• Stronger sustainability verification. Transparent supply chains make it much harder for IUU products to hide. Verified fishing or farming behaviour, catch locations, and handling practices give responsible operators a clear advantage and allow retailers to stand behind their sustainability claims.

• Better information and trust for consumers. Instead of generic origin labels, shoppers can gain access to detailed, product-specific histories.

The path forward: transparency as the industry standard

AI is giving the seafood industry the data infrastructure it has long lacked, transforming scattered and inconsistent information into a coherent and trustworthy account of how products move through the chain. Ocean Orchestra’s operating system shows how transparency is shifting from aspiration to an achievable standard.

As transparency becomes embedded in day-to-day operations, the industry moves towards better supply chain orchestration, where decisions are grounded in verifiable information, risks are visible early, and trust is strengthened from vessel to retailer to consumer.

Sources: Ocean Orchestra, *The Guardian, ** Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), *** Financial Times