Ready to Dine on the Catch of the Day?
Well if you're dining in San Pedro, you'll have the chance to learn more about your meal than you ever imagined.
That's because of the new "Fresca Pesca" app, a digital link between fisher, restaurateur, and consumer that's setting a standard for transparency and hopefully sustainable fishing.
It's still in it's pilot phase but this morning I was invited to San Pedro to test it out first hand. Here's that story.
This is Elvi's Kitchen, home to Ambergris's Cayes most delectable, fish, squid, and lobster dishes.
And now, home to a set of all-important QR codes - linked to the Fresca Pesca app - that are now permanently affixed to the tables.
But they're not for the contactless menu, they're a portal to quite an unexpected show with your dinner.
Customer
"I scan this little symbol here and it shows you what fish are available today, who caught it, it shows you the fishing trip, the map and there is even a fisehermen greeting here. Fastastic."
Jacinta Gomez, Outreach and Project Director, OCEANA
"The way it works is a virtual observer is posted on to the fishing vessel where the fisher goes out and that captures the fishing activity. It also analyzes the fishing activity on the back end. When the fisher comes back in they are able to update an e-reporting app with the fishing data, so key harvesting data like the species, the gear they use, the amount of sich they caught, where they caught that fish and all of this goes into the cloud and its link to that video of the actual fishing activity. They slap a label on their icebox and they bring that to the restaurant that they want to sell it to or they post it on a marketplace app
where restaurateurs are able to browse and see the catch of the day in real time as the fisher is posting it. When the restaurateurs received that they are able to scan that QR code and that links to the QR codes that you see on the tables here at Elvi's, so that you as the consumers are able to come in here, dine and have dinner and a show basically. You scan the QR code and you will be able to see footage of your fisher catching what's on your plate and reading more about them where they are from and also reading about the landing site, so whether that fish was landed here on the island or if it was landed in Dangriga for example."
And with the fish on your plate having such varied origins. It'll be more important than ever to know whether your meal is safe and sustainable. And that's hard even for an expert.
Sourcing fish is a way of life for Chef Jennie Staines, but she shocked the media this morning when she told us that before the app she'd often make overnight trips to Belize City to buy the finfish prepared at Elvi's.
Jennie Staines, Chef, Elvi's Kitchen
"Just this week I had somebody call me and showed me a picture of a fish that they got that supposedly should be grouper. It was parrotfish and that's illegal and this happened this week."
"With me it hasn't really happened, I catch on there and then but they always try to give you barracuda, deep water triggers, Deep water triggers are not bad you know but it's not a good fish to sell. It's hard like a rock. So these are the different that will help the industry and we will have a better product."
Happy chefs and happy fishers, OCEANA says it hopes that the app will open up a wider array of opportunities for fishers countrywide.
Jacinta Gomez, Outreach and Project Director, OCEANA
"We're also interested in allowing Belizean fishers to take ownership of the process and giving them access to newer markets, so for example, a San Pedro fisher is able to easily send their catch on the island but for example, now they're able to post that and for example, a resort in Placencia can purchase from them and you know they have a wider market and a market that is open to people willing to pay a premium price because they know that it's been responsibly sourced. You have the added benefit of giving your customers an entire new experience by scanning the QR code and seeing the entire story."
Amy Knox is another island chef who's excited to give that new experience to her customers, but she also hopes that the data collected will be a telling indicator of the industry's responsibility to the Ocean.
Amy Knox, Wild Mango's Restaurant
"If you think about it there's how many restaurant's here on San Pedro and we all use fish, as well, as, we have to do it sustainably or we're new app is going one step forward."
"It will make you more aware of season's, and doing the right thing and of trying to protect the species. Two three years ago in January, fish kin of run around, sell it as if they had caught their on snapper -protect the species and be sustainable."
And no conversation about sustainability would be complete without considering islanders who traditionally put fish in tea, dinner, and tea. We wondered if wider access to fishermen and their produce would drive the price too high for everyday people?
Alyssa Noble
"This is actually going to give consumers a lot more choice, I think in terms of fish. This particularly is with restaurants and how restaurants sourced sea food, so it wouldn't negate or impact individuals ability to be able to source sea food directly anyway, but I also want to ask yourselves beyond this app and you look at the price of seafood that how its been rising dramatically over the past few years as the cost of inputs have gone up."
And for many, the Fresca Pesca app is a breath of fresh air or maybe a wave of salty water: sustainability in the perfect union of traditional fishing practices and innovative technology.
A the provenance of fish is all important to a restaurant like Elvis's which serves about 100 pounds of the stuff a week right now in the slow season but could serve up as much as 600 pounds a week during an average tourist high season.
