Solutions / Prevent IUU & unsustainable sourcing
Keep illegal and unsustainable product out — before you own it.
The biggest sourcing risk hits before the fish is even bought: IUU catch or unsustainable product entering your chain unintentionally, and surfacing later as a recall, a delisting or a lawsuit. SmarTuna lets you screen what you're buying at the source — vessel, method and origin — so a problem is caught while you can still walk away.
The problem
The risk arrives before the purchase.
By the time illegal or unsustainable product shows up in an audit, it's already in your supply chain — and the exposure is yours. Brands have faced costly lawsuits and lasting reputational damage over IUU fish and unproven sustainability claims.
It rarely happens through bad intent. It happens through blind spots: when a sourcing decision rests on documents passed down the chain, an unauthorized vessel or unsustainable catch is invisible until it's too late to say no.
The approach
Screen before you pay — don't audit after.
The cheapest and safest place to stop an IUU or unsustainable-sourcing problem is before the transaction closes.
SmarTuna moves the check upstream: who caught the product, how, and where — and whether it clears your legal and sustainability bar — at the point where "no" is still an option.
How SmarTuna keeps it out
Three layers of assurance, before purchase and all the way through.
Screen the vessel or farm
Authorization to catch that species in that area, IUU-list and RFMO status, and at-sea behavior such as gaps and encounters.
Verify the origin
First-mile data that can’t be substituted with paperwork, so nothing illegal can be laundered into a clean-looking chain.
Verify sustainability, not just legality
MSC and ASC chain of custody, catch method, ETP-bycatch and FAD-related claims, checked as proof points rather than taken on trust.
Two bars
Legal and sustainable are different tests.
IUU is a question of legality — was this vessel allowed to catch this, here, now. Sustainability is a different bar — the health of the stock, the method used, the verified certification behind the claim on your pack.
A clean supply chain has to clear both — checked against the same verified record, so neither passes on the strength of the other.
You decide
We surface the signals. The call stays yours.
SmarTuna sharpens the decision; it doesn't make it for you. The platform flags what deserves attention as evidence for your team to weigh.
It gives you the diligence trail to act on, and to show later that you looked.
The economics
The cheapest problem is the one you never bought.
A liability becomes a decision
Recall, delisting or lawsuit costs create more damage than declining a questionable batch. Screening before you purchase turns an open-ended liability into a decision you have made with evidence in hand.
Protection you can show
Transparent sourcing you can prove isn't only protection. It's something you can put in front of a retailer, an NGO or a consumer — and stand behind.
The result
What this means for your business.
Built for the whole ocean
See what's really behind your seafood.
SmarTuna works across all oceans, all seafood species, and every major fishing and farming method.
Developed by Pacifical, the team behind the traceability system used by the world's largest MSC-certified purse-seine tuna fishery.