In 2023, we renewed our investment with a partner actively involved in sustainable fishing and aquaculture. Why place such importance on this sector? Here are a few reasons.
In 2023, we renewed our investment with a partner actively involved in sustainable fishing and aquaculture. Why place such importance on this sector? Here are a few reasons.
Firstly, because this sector is crucial for the global ecosystem and the lives of millions of people.
Sustainable fishing helps preserve marine biodiversity, protect habitats, and regenerate fish populations, thereby ensuring the health of marine ecosystems and limiting negative environmental impacts.
However, the path ahead is still long.
According to the FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), only 35% of fish stocks were considered sustainable just two years ago. If nothing changes, seafood could even disappear by 2048, thus threatening marine biodiversity, food security, and the global economy.
Beyond environmental concerns, the impact of sustainable fishing also extends to human well-being and social justice.
It ensures food security, supports local economies, and preserves the livelihoods of communities dependent on fishing. In 2022, approximately 59 million people were engaged in fish production, with nearly 60%, or about 34.8 million, being small-scale artisanal fishers operating in coastal and inland waters.
For all these reasons, to prevent a global food crisis, protect marine biodiversity, and support local economies, we continue to invest with our partner BlueYou.
To learn more about their impact and vision, we had the pleasure of interviewing René Benguerel, CEO and co-founder of BlueYou. Discover how, notably through its collaboration with Alterfin that began in 2017, BlueYou is revolutionizing the seafood industry.
My passion for sustainable fishing goes back to my childhood. I've always been fascinated by marine life and aware of the importance of protecting it.
Basically, everything I've done in my life has revolved around this passion.
After studying aquatic ecology and marine biology, I worked in the Swiss retail sector to promote sustainable seafood sourcing practices. Why work in the private sector? Because, in my opinion, this sector has the tools, resources, and influence needed to bring about real change.
That’s where I met Matthias, the other co-founder of Blueyou. Through our experiences, we both realized the importance of creating an economic model that combines the harvesting of sustainable seafood with the conservation of the oceans and strong support for coastal communities.
Founding Blueyou was just the next step: a natural continuation of our close collaboration with fishing and farming communities and our dedication to ocean conservation and sustainable development.
Today, Blueyou is, to put it simply, an impact-first seafood company which develops and operates its own fisheries and aquaculture programs with coastal communities worldwide.
At Blueyou, we believe that we cannot protect the planet or conserve nature without ensuring prosperous communities.
When people are struggling to survive, to provide for themselves and feed their children, it becomes extremely difficult to implement conservation programmes to protect mangroves, marine habitats, forests or coral reefs. That's why, for us, these efforts must go hand in hand.
To be able to restore marine life and allow our oceans to prosper, we focus on thriving communities, fair supply chains for small-scale fishermen and farmers, and consumers committed to paying a fair price. With this powerful combination, we believe we can make a difference to degraded environments. That's really our theory of change.
But we don’t stop there, we want our models to be also financially sustainable and inspire other players in the sector to change.
First, we have a dedicated in-house scientific team, which we refer to as our Ocean Impact team.
We are likely the only seafood company in the world with such a resource, making up half our workforce.
This means that 50% of our staff is dedicated to impact, science, metrics, monitoring, and project work in the countries of origin. This unique structure allows us not only to develop our own improvement programmes but also to implement them on the ground, ensure they are well executed, and safeguard consistency for the long run.
Secondly, we understand that cooperation is key.
We work closely with local authorities, local conservation NGOs, and the private sector.
For example, we seek to leverage private sector incentives to engage fishermen and farmers, change practices, and improve management. Success hinges on collaborative efforts with local authorities, and often, we need to support them in their roles.
Finally, we need a long-term commitment to reach financial viability. Our programmes typically take 3-4 years for early-stage development and are initially financed through grants. However, each programme is designed to become self-sufficient through commercial revenues over time. That’s why market integration is also one of our major strengths. We have found that local conservation initiatives often fail without connection to markets, committed commercial partners and transparent supply chains.
Therefore, we focus on creating commercial connections, story-telling and solid seafood branding to ensure the viability of our sustainable fisheries and aquaculture programs and bring them to self-sufficiency over time. This approach sets us apart from traditional NGOs.
The main challenges to sustainable fishing are multi-dimensional, encompassing resource management and the supply chain.
On the resource side, one of the biggest issues is managing open-access fisheries. The fishing sector remains unique in the food industry because it still operates in the wild. This poses challenges in resource management, governance, regulation, and enforcement. Inefficiencies, corruption, and weak governance are significant obstacles, especially for artisanal and community-based fisheries in the global South.
On the supply chain side, a major challenge is "walking the talk." Many large retailers, hotel chains, and food service companies have sustainability and social equity policies in place, but they are rarely implemented in daily operations.
Transforming our broken global food system requires more than just selling certified products: It demands deep, systemic changes in sourcing practices and real commitment to impact on a holistic level. Many large players are content with minimal changes and fail to push beyond the surface-level sustainability measures.
Our challenge at Blueyou is to bridge these two sides, working with governments and local authorities on improved local resource management while driving awareness and meaningful commitments to change and reform in the supply chain.
Alterfin, along with our other impact investors, plays a crucial role in our work. Specifically, as our first investor alongside Rabo Bank, Alterfin’s support was pivotal.
Why? Initially, grant funding is essential for developing our programmes. However, as the programme matures and begins generating exportable products, that’s when you need funding, which needs to be adequate and timely. These loans help us to build supply chains and generate revenue, which is key for the programmes' long-term sustainability.
Alterfin's support is at the heart of our model, providing funding that aligns perfectly with our vision and mission. Their investments are essential to overcoming the challenges and risks we face and transforming our programmes into self-sustaining projects.
One of our greatest successes is our Fair Trade certified pole and line tuna fishery in the Maldives. Our program, also developed with the help of Alterfin, partners with local island communities and supports livelihoods and environmental improvement. The generated Fair Trade premiums support communities’ resilience and viability.
Over the last six years, more than $500,000 in Fair Trade premiums have been invested in environmental improvements on six islands in the Maldives.
These funds have been used to create improved waste management systems, recycling programs and beach clean-ups, significantly benefiting remote communities often overlooked by government support.
This example demonstrates how Fair Trade premiums can go beyond improving the remuneration of fishermen and farmers to bring more comprehensive benefits to communities as a whole.
In my opinion, the urgency of implementing sustainable practices in the sector has remained relatively unchanged in recent years.
Compared with other food sectors, such as livestock or dairy products, the seafood industry is among the most advanced in terms of sustainability. In fact, if done correctly, the seafood industry, including aquaculture, has tremendous potential to provide nutritious, healthy proteins for a growing global population. What's more, the loss of biodiversity on land is far more serious than the impact of fishing on our oceans.
That said, the state of the world's fisheries remains worrying - around 40% of fish stocks are moderately exploited, while a quarter are overexploited. These figures underline the necessity and relevance of our mission in 2024.
At Blueyou, we aim to lead by example and create a blueprint for others to follow. We focus on small-scale and community fisheries that have a significant socio-economic impact. We are targeting the 50% of the world's catch that comes from these small-scale fisheries, which can improve considerably through better management, better access to markets and greater transparency.
Finally, as someone who lives on a blue planet, I am convinced that we should focus more on producing food and protein from the ocean rather than from the land. Our oceans have the capacity and capability to regenerate much quicker than land-based, degraded ecosystems.
We currently have two main impact programs under development. One concerns small-scale, low-impact community fishing, and the second concerns restorative aquaculture.
At the same time, Blueyou is committed to addressing global environmental and social challenges, including climate change, animal welfare, carbon footprint reduction, and product optimisation through eco-friendly packaging and circular economy practices.
It's obviously a crucial issue whether we're talking about the quality of life of marine animals in wild fisheries and aquaculture, both in terms of minimising animal suffering and improving their quality of life.
Improving animal welfare is not just about ethics; it also contributes to better seafood quality.
We believe that with the right practices, seafood can provide healthy, nutritious protein while maintaining high welfare standards.
Blueyou is a pioneer in wild fisheries with an animal welfare policy that improves the treatment of captured species. In aquaculture, the company ensures that all products meet high animal welfare standards, contributing to product quality and reduced suffering.
Our mission is to demonstrate that, with the right practices, seafood can provide healthy and nutritious protein while maintaining high welfare standards, offering consumers a responsible choice.
Take seafood as an opportunity to provide you with healthy and nutritious protein and investigate the details! Seafood offers unique opportunities and is potentially one of the best protein sources on the planet.
Here are two tips for making responsible choices:
Guiding consumers and seafood buyers is one of the reasons Blueyou has created its new seafood brand which embodies our commitment to sustainable and ethical practices in the seafood industry. Our aim is to convey these values directly to consumers and chefs, guide them, and ensure that our impact is clearly perceived.
Indeed, our approach is constantly evolving and it’s a journey of continuous improvement.
The first tipping point was the realisation that we must engage commercially ourselves to establish and maintain transparent supply chains between community-based fisheries and farmers and the retail and food service buyers.
Now, with the launch of our new seafood brand which is applicable to both retail and food service markets, we have created the basis for involving consumers, chefs and commercial decision makers into our impact mission, share stories and successes –creating much larger impact at scale.
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