On February 9, 2023, the Final meeting organized by the Slow Food Tebourba Association, partner of the SUREFISH project, was held at the Golden Tulip EL Mechtel Hotel in Tunis, which also made it possible to bring together the innovators of the Tunisian fish supply chain and to know the main innovative projects related to this important sector, a source of income for thousands of people.
“There are countless partnership opportunities in the fishing sector in Tunisia, a country that has important development prospects, in particular for Italian companies interested in the transformation of food products linked to fishing and in the supply of processing plants and machinery, the storage and logistics of the catch”, underlined Domenico Letizia, describing the importance of traceability and innovative technologies for fishing and the fish supply chain, through the use of innovative information and communication technologies (Ict), for the exploitation of fish, such as blockchain, smart labeling and packaging, and analytical and sensory methods.
Considerable interest has aroused the “Nemo Kantara” project, which aims to improve the resilience of coastal communities through the integrated and sustainable management of natural resources and participation in local development. Specifically: improve and diversify the production and incomes of fishing operators and coastal communities in the governorates of Gabes and Médenine, with the dual objective of reducing poverty by facilitating access to support and management services, but also through financial instruments concrete measures aimed at the weakest categories: young people and women.
Moncef Kniss of the “Gipp” organization illustrated the strategy adopted by the Mare Nostrum project which has the general objective of “promoting and supporting entrepreneurship, through greater cross-border cooperation between companies”, allowing local Italian and Tunisian companies to guarantee transparency through blockchain technology: a trading platform, where fish companies can market their products using a QR-Code that allows the entire supply chain to be traced in compliance with safety, hygiene and traceability standards food.
