Values, Challenges, and Opportunities for Resilience Presented by Alternative Seafood Networks

Abstract

The globalization of the seafood industry has prompted the creation of alternative business models that seek to resist the industrialization of the industry, while promoting a specific set of core social and environmental values that ostensibly deviate from the global mainstream. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, actors in this “alternative” space emerged as a visible feature of the global seafood distribution system. By restructuring and shortening seafood supply chains, alternative seafood networks (ASNs) are reasserting the importance of a specific set of values in food systems for both environmental and socio-cultural reasons. This thesis explores the diversity of businesses within the alternative seafood space and how this diversity has emerged and changed over time. It also draws comparisons from food systems literature to understand the implications of too much diversity within the alternative seafood space. Finally, this thesis also explores the challenges ASN operators face and opportunities to address them. This work is an opportunity