At Seafood Souq we’ve created five pillars to ensure we stay true to what we originally set out to do, both internally and externally. We live and breathe these five pillars, they are the key ingredients that improve our ability to approach and revolutionise an industry.

We are first and foremost, a technology company. We understand that in order to survive and thrive in today’s world, companies need to embrace technology. Seafood Souq exists to ensure the capabilities afforded to us by technology are brought to the players in the Seafood Industry and beyond.

In the case of Seafood Souq;

1 — Technology can bring Efficiencies

2 — Technology can bring Choice

3 — Technology can bring Value

4 — Technology can bring Traceability

5 — Technology can bring Transparency

These are our five Pillars; Efficiency, Choice, Value, Traceability, Transparency

So what do we intend on building within the framework formed from these pillars?

-A B2B e-commerce platform

-An automated supply chain process

-A platform that allows the aggregation and sharing of market data

-Machine learning/AI to capabilities to extract value throughout the value chain

-Supply chain traceability

-A JIT ordering system (Last mile efficiencies)

Successful businesses are the ones that embrace technology and the future. The benefits Seafood Souq will bring to various companies are far reaching and are far too many to speak of in a single blog, but we will make an effort to highlight through use cases and targeted blogs on specific issues as we grow, so please keep reading our posts and feel free to reach out to us — we love to chat!

I want this blog to set the scene for our followup blogs, each one will reference this post and readers will be able to access those various blogs when they are posted through here as I’ll keep this as a live document (Again — It’s a great way to keep us to account as we grow)

Let’s dip our toes into what these Pillars mean to us;

Efficiencies

This covers a large area of our business. Digitization inherently brings efficiencies and we’ve seen this across all sectors. Through building a two-sided B2B e-commerce marketplace, linking both buyers and sellers of products, we aim to make it easier to purchase and receive, as well as easier to sell and access new markets and buyers.

We are automating as many processes as possible, throughout the Supply Chain, as well as a Just-In-Time (JIT) delivery process to bring efficiencies all the way through to the last mile and to do away with the need for warehousing — If we want true freshness and to give buyers increased shelf life of their purchases, then JIT really is the only option.

“When first developed in Japan in the 1970s, the idea of just-in-time (JIT) marked a radical new approach… supplying parts only as and when the process required them. The old system became known (by contrast) as just-in-case*

*The Economist

Choice

Through building a B2B e-commerce marketplace we are providing a channel that links buyers and sellers directly. Any producer of any product in any country may list their products for sale and products only enter the UAE through JIT when an order is made — thus ensuring their freshness and de-risking the purchase for customers. Currently, we usually only see products being brought into the country that importers know they can sell in a relatively short period of time because not selling them right away means wastage through expiry and storage costs

Value

In a connected world, we should operate in an open marketplace where the market sets the price. An e-commerce marketplace ensures the democratization of pricing, as well as allows for better price discovery for buyers. We want to avoid lengthy processes that buyers have to go through to make sure they are getting the best price for a specific product, and likewise, enable sellers to compete on price among other qualities of their products — This leads nicely onto our next pillar….

Traceability

Without traceability and provenance, buyers don’t necessarily know what they are buying, and so can’t make the best decision based on their values — whether it be price, quality, country of origin. Likewise, Sellers are not able to communicate their brand or qualities they work hard to achieve to their buyers.

Supply chain traceability also means that a buyer can ensure the quality of their seafood and that they are indeed getting the product they have purchased. We provide this traceability so that a buyer knows that their product is fresh and has travelled to them in the best condition and in the most efficient way possible — You only have to watch the news, the countless documentaries or Google ‘Seafood traceability’ to realize the importance of this to all parties involved, all the way down to the end consumer. This is a way to promote sustainable fishing, educate and pave the way for best practices throughout this industry.

“ For seafood traders, the lack of product origin information and supply chain transparency can pose significant risks and have far reaching and unforeseen effects…In the past, the focus has been primarily on food-safety concerns, but media coverage has highlighted wider environmental, social and legal issues associated with seafood.

*Mariah Boyle, Author Without a Trace: A Summary of Traceability Efforts in the Seafood Industry and Project Director at sustainable seafood consultancy FishWise

Transparency

Closely linked to, but not to be confused with Traceability…This relates to transparency of the whole process with full cost breakdown, origin details, communication and the market. Within a closed industry made up of many players that are segregated and not integrated, there is inherently very little data available to the players, thus making informed decisions is nearly impossible, whether it be for the buyers, sellers, logistics partners or even at a country level.

By creating an open marketplace, and linking buyers and sellers directly, and all partners involved throughout the supply chain, an incredible amount of visibility is afforded that can be used for the market as a whole or for the individual players — We’ve all heard of the benefits of Big Data, but we know the pitfalls of having too much information and no way of actually using it — Seafood Souq wants to give that control and analytic capabilities to users whilst maintaining something that is important to all businesses — privacy. We hold ourselves to the highest standards of privacy.

…Well, I hope this helps set out an introduction of who we are and what we want to bring to the table (Pardon the pun)!

From our team to yours, we look forward to working with you

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