Small-scale, artisanal and traditional fishers supply a large share of the global seafood table. Yet, in many markets—from local stalls to international export—traceability systems are built around data, scale, and benchmarks derived from industrial/commercial fisheries. This session explores the crucial role SSF intermediaries play in co-creating workable traceability systems with small-scale fishers: stitching together patchwork data, leveraging local know-how, adapting technology, and reconciling informality with market demands.

We will dive into:

• What has been learned so far: successes, pitfalls, and unexpected outcomes when intermediaries work with SSF to build traceability—for example, how local catch data, fisher knowledge or community norms have been integrated into traceability, and the challenges of comparing or aligning these with industrial benchmarks.
• How intermediaries build workflows: the mix of tools, technologies, record keeping, logistic and financial relationships intermediaries combine—such as paper vs digital records, varying levels of verification, supply chain mapping, transportation, cold chain, grading, labelling, certification—to make traceability both feasible and credible.
• Where tensions lie: e.g. cost burdens; technical vs social data; formal vs informal; language, literacy, culture; power asymmetries; risk of small-scale fishers being excluded if they can’t meet industrial norms.
• Moving forward: what innovations or models show promise to reconcile SSF traceability with global market standards without losing the value of SSF distinctiveness; how policy, funders, private sector, intermediaries and fishers can collaborate to set more inclusive benchmarks; how shared platforms, capacity building, tailored tech, and equitable governance arrangements can shift systems.

By the end of the session, participants will gain insights into how SSF intermediaries can help bridge the gap between traditional/local traceability practices and the data-driven expectations of commercial/industrial seafood markets and international standards—and leave with a clearer sense of action steps (both practical and policy-oriented) for more equitable and resilient traceability systems.