SCALING UP

How one Scottish startup is using data as bait to lure the very analog seafood industry into the 21st century.

- ALEX CHRISTIAN

THE CHAOS BEGINS at 5 am. The markets open, the traders arrive, and the auction floor heaves. Over the next six hours, gambles are taken, hands are shaken, and deals are made. This old-school scene is how fishers in Europe sell their catch to processors, who then slice, dice, and prepare the seafood for wholesalers, the last-mile delivery companies that supply restaurants, fishmongers, and supermarkets.

Some 140,000 businesses make up the European seafood market, which trades more than $140 billion worth of fish every year. Despite those high numbers, the industry is mostly offline and resistant to disruption; aside from phone calls and emails, the grandest use of technology may be the occasional WhatsApp message.