Blue Star Foods, the Miami, Florida based seafood specialist, is proving that it is possible to have a sustainable and profitable business in the seafood industry.

The title of a recent article posted on Under Current News sums it up: Blue Star Foods’ founder sees ‘3BL’ effort resonating more with crab buyers.

In 2015, Blue Star Foods partnered with Wilderness Markets to develop their Triple Bottom Line (3BL) strategy. The company wanted to design and implement appropriate financial and social incentives to enable fishermen in their supply chain to transition faster to sustainable fishing practices. Through its purchasing power and relationships, Blue Star was in a strong position to influence the practices of a range of processors who have commercial relationships with a network of mini-plants, collectors, and fishermen. We designed and tested a pilot initiative in one site in Indonesia, which has since been expanded.

Triple bottom line refers to the idea of pursuing environmental, economic, and financial goals simultaneously. Our work often centers around the research and data collection needed to modify or create a value chain that fosters this model with existing practitioners.

“We chose to work with Wilderness markets to develop our 3BL strategy because of their experience with impact investing AND expertise with wild-caught fisheries. That foundational work has made implementation a success.”— John Keeler, Executive Chairman & CSO, Blue Star Foods

For Blue Star Foods, our work helped the company originate, design and develop the strategy (find the report in more detail here).

They have implemented it with vigor, and it’s paying off.

After only two years, they are seeing progress in the sustainability of blue swimming crab fisheries in Indonesia and have expanded their efforts to include the Philippines. In the process, these sustainability practices are positively impacting the social well being of harvesters and workers, and improving sales to more large-scale foodservice, retail and institutional buyers.

Read the article to learn more about the impact Blue Star Foods has seen and how companies may integrate the benefits of developing and implementing 3BL strategies.