Indiegogo is a crowdfunding platform (like Kickstarter) and Salty Girl Seafood is a team of University of California, Santa Barbara grads who want to start a company to facilitate sustainable, traceable, and fresh seafood. Their boat-to-table model would circumvent the traditional seafood supply chain and ship directly from the fishermen to restaurants and markets.
According to a 2012 study by the conservation group Oceana.org our seafood markets are riddled with fraud.
From the study: "Despite growing concern about where our food comes from, consumers are frequently served a completely different type of fish than the one they paid for. As Oceana’s nationwide study and others demonstrate, seafood may be mislabeled as often as 26 to 87 percent of the time for commonly swapped fish such as grouper, cod and snapper, disguising fish that are less desirable, cheaper or more readily available."
KEY RESULTS
• Mislabeling was found in 27 of the 46 fish types tested (59%).
• Snapper (87%) and tuna (59%) were the most commonly mislabeled fish types.
• Only seven of the 120 red snapper samples were honestly labeled.
• Between one-fifth to more than one-third of the halibut, grouper, cod and Chilean seabass samples were mislabeled.
• 44% of all the grocery stores, restaurants and sushi venues visited sold mislabeled seafood.
• 84% of the white tuna samples were actually escolar, a species that can cause serious digestive issues for some individuals who eat more than a few ounces.