Only One

Fish farming was once framed as a more sustainable way of producing seafood. A new investigation from the Outlaw Ocean Project reveals there's more beneath the surface — uncovering a story of environmental destruction, exploitation and crime. Learn more ->

Fish farming was once framed as a more sustainable way of producing seafood. A new investigation from the Outlaw Ocean Project reveals there's more beneath the surface — uncovering a story of environmental destruction, exploitation and crime. Learn more ->

Fish farming was once framed as a more sustainable way of producing seafood. A new investigation from the Outlaw Ocean Project reveals there's more beneath the surface — uncovering a story of environmental destruction, exploitation and crime. Learn more ->

For nearly a decade, The Outlaw Ocean Project has produced reporting about crimes on the watery two-thirds of the planet. The stories can leave readers feeling removed from the reporting. To avoid this, we try to connect these problems to the consumers and sellers who unwittingly benefit from them. Through supply-chain tracing, we show how the true cost of seafood is not what appears on the label. A first-of-its-kind tool built for journalists, academics, law enforcement, regulators, company officials, and watchdog advocates, Bait to Plate instrumentalizes our reporting by tracking seafood as it moves from the water to the consumer, across hundreds of thousands of ships, fishmeal plants, fish farms, and grocers. Drawing not just on our reporting but also from regulatory reports, certification audits, court records, NGO investigations, and published articles, the tool documents thousands of cases of unethical, unsustainable, or illegal behavior, including avoidable fatalities, shark finning, chemical dumping, illegal fishing, captive labor, crew abandonment, unpaid wages, and more. It then maps those cases onto supply chains so as to establish their connection to culprits, beneficiaries, and consumers. In the past, such a tool might have been difficult to use because it entailed navigating many filters and asking questions in rigid ways. Bait to Plate, on the other hand, deploys a chatbot (B2P Bot) so users can explore the reporting more freely. Further, we will be hosting online training sessions the first Monday of each month starting in November 2026 for anyone wanting help using Bait to Plate. (RSVP: [email protected]). As new reporting is added to the tool, readers can be alerted by email if they sign up. Try the tool: https://lnkd.in/ek_6c4Kz

What is Rhetoric to Reality? In the past several years, a half dozen seafood companies have been sued for making false advertising claims. Typically, these cases have been based on a gap between environmental, food safety, or worker protection claims, on the one hand, and conflicting realities within the companies’ supply chains. A tuna brand that advertises itself as avoiding illegal fishing but, perhaps unwittingly, relies on ships prosecuted for that very crime. A shrimp farm that sells itself as sustainable but fails to disclose or realize that it uses fishmeal-based feed tied to over-exploited species. A grocer that says it avoids forced labor or other illegal activities even though it sells brands tied to state-sponsored forced labor in Xinjiang or ships documented using captive workers. There are several reasons that seafood has so many crimes and concerns hidden within its production. The industry relies on distinctly long supply chains. The number of handoffs between bait and plate is many, spanning great distances. The workplace of a ship on the high seas is remote and lacks clear rules or anyone to effectively enforce them. Aquaculture produces more than half of the seafood eaten globally. But the sustainability stories that the industry markets typically start at the farm, without accounting for what goes into the feed used to power them. Many of the factories that process the seafood are based in countries like China, where independent inspections or unannounced audits are forbidden. Many modern and globalized products have already been forced to begin reckoning with problems hidden within their supply chains. This has given rise to the likes of fair-trade coffee, free-range meat, sweatshop-free garments, anti-conflict minerals, and other efforts. Global seafood lags in this trend. The Rhetoric-to-Reality tool should help change that. To learn how to use this tool and other parts of Bait to Plate, please consult our User Guides (https://lnkd.in/e_Zz5773), which feature a half dozen short explainer videos. We will be hosting online training sessions the first Monday of each month, starting in November 2026. (Please RSVP: [email protected].) Try the tool: https://lnkd.in/eabAyN_Z

“Those of us who have recently eaten farm-raised seafood are participating in a developing environmental crisis.”