Saving Seafood

Bar Harbor Foods® Named 2020 MSC US Ocean Champion

July 7, 2021 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) awarded Bar Harbor Foods® the MSC US Ocean Champion Award for going above and beyond the MSC standards in 2020, and for their continued dedication to seafood sustainability. Bar Harbor Foods® has been a leader in this space over the course of their thirteen-year partnership with the MSC – now displaying the MSC blue fish label on more than 20 qualifying products under the Bar Harbor brand. Brian Cote, National Sales Director, accepted the award on behalf of Bar Harbor in a small ceremony in Whiting, Maine presented by MSC’s Senior Commercial Manager, Nicole Condon.

“It’s an honor for us to be recognized for simply being who we are. Sustainability has been a focal point of our platform for more than a decade, not just something to participate in when it is trendy,” said Cote.

“As a long-term partner, Bar Harbor has repeatedly shown leadership and innovation in their sourcing and integration of the MSC blue fish label as a staple component of their brand,” said Eric Critchlow, MSC’s program director, USA. “They have shown that much of their innovation centers around including MSC certified sustainable sources in their product development. It will be exciting to see what Bar Harbor will develop next!”

Over the course of their thirteen years working with the MSC, Bar Harbor has been an active supporter of the MSC mission and a market leader with sustainably sourced MSC certified seafood products available in the retail sector. In 2008, the company introduced the first MSC ecolabeled seafood soups to the marketplace and followed up with the first ever MSC certified clam chowder available in 2017. Bar Harbor will be introducing the first-ever MSC certified condiments this summer including cocktail and tartar sauces using MSC certified clam juice.

The MSC US Ocean Champion Award was established in 2017 to reward fisheries and companies engaged in the MSC program who demonstrate continued leadership on sustainability above and beyond the MSC fisheries or Chain of Custody standards. Bar Harbor joins past winners including: Sam’s Club; the Annette Island Reserve Salmon Fishery, Metlakatla Indian Community; Bamboo Sushi and the Sustainable Restaurant Group; US Foods; Whole Foods Market; and TransOcean. Awardees are selected based on their demonstrated leadership and the ability to spark positive change within the industry. The custom glass award featuring a wave and the company’s name is handmade in downtown Seattle, WA.

According to a 2020 global consumer study commissioned by the MSC, 55% of U.S. seafood consumers believe that we must consume seafood only from sustainable sources to protect the ocean. Furthermore, 64% of Americans want retailers’ and brands’ claims about sustainability and the environment to be clearly labeled by an independent organization, such as the MSC.

The ocean feeds billions of people and provides 80% of the world’s biodiversity. A report by the UN Food & Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) shows that sustainable fisheries are more productive and resilient to change, and the UN Environment Program reports that sustainable fishing protects ocean biodiversity. The leadership of companies like Bar Harbor make sustainable fisheries and supply chains possible, and makes certified sustainable seafood products easily accessible and identifiable for consumers.

On the Hook once again urges independent external review of MSC as it relaunches

July 1, 2021 — The On the Hook campaign has relaunched, shifting its focus back towards the pursuit of a “full, external, independent, and forensic review” of the Marine Stewardship Council’s standards and operation.

On the Hook was first founded in 2017 to challenge the Marine Stewardship Council’s certification of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement’s tuna fishery, the world’s largest.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Consumers are demanding more sustainable seafood — and it’s working

June 30, 2021 — American shoppers cruising down the seafood aisle — even those hundreds of miles away from a working coastline — are increasingly concerned about the health of the ocean.

The decline of fish populations and ocean health is the sixth highest environmental concern worldwide, but Americans prioritize it even higher — ranking ocean health as their third highest environmental concern, according to 2020 survey conducted by independent research and strategy consultancy, Globescan.

Love for the ocean is translating into a desire to protect it — especially when Americans go to the grocery store. Consumers are ready to go to bat for sustainable seafood and companies that prove their willingness to protect the ocean.

Some 57 percent of 19,000 consumers surveyed in the United States and Canada are willing to change their buying habits to reduce their impact on the environment, according to a survey conducted by IBM and The National Retail Federation in 2020. The same is true of seafood buyers: According to the 2020 Globescan survey, 55 percent of U.S. seafood consumers agreed that in order to protect the ocean, fish and seafood should be consumed only from sustainable sources. Furthermore, the study found 65 percent of Americans believe supermarkets should remove all unsustainable fish and seafood products from their shelves.

When shoppers are standing in grocery stores, how do they know the full story behind the seafood in front of them? Oftentimes, they look for eco-labels, a third-party label or logo which identifies products proven to be environmentally preferable, which have proliferated in recent decades. The Globescan study found that 64 percent of Americans believe retailers’ and brands’ claims about sustainability and the environment need to be clearly labeled by an independent organization.

Read the full story at Grist

Gulf of Saint Lawrence snow crab fishery withdraws from MSC, launches new FIP

June 16, 2021 — A new comprehensive fishery improvement project (FIP) has been launched by New Brunswick and Quebec seafood processors and fishermen associations, which they hope will lead to reduced entanglements with North Atlantic right whales.

The main objective of the new FIP is to regain Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for the fishery, which was suspended for Area 12 and Sub-Areas 12 E and 12 F in 2018 due to incidents resulting in right whale deaths. As part of the launch of the new FIP, the fishery has “decided to withdraw” from the MSC program to focus its efforts on the improvements needed to regain certification – in part because the FIP would run past the expiration date of the suspended certification – according to a release by the recently launched “snow crab zone 12.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ASC to tackle “one of biggest threats to aquaculture’s reputation” with new feed standard

June 15, 2021 — After years of development, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) launched a new feed standard on Tuesday, 15 June, seeking to “tackle one of biggest threats to aquaculture’s reputation.”

Recognizing that “unsustainable and irresponsible practices across the aquaculture feed-supply chain risk undoing the positive impact of the farming industry,” ASC’s new standards requires feed mills to meet a series of “strict environmental and social requirements; source ingredients from socially responsible suppliers; and use environmentally responsible raw materials.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Red Lobster latest seafood vendor to get hit with sustainability-focused lawsuit

June 15, 2021 — A growing number of class-action lawsuits are being filed against seafood retailers and foodservice outlets, claiming their offerings do not meet their own sustainability claims.

Earlier this month, in a complaint filed in the U.S. Superior Court in the District of Columbia, ALDI was accused of false advertising and marketing, with the advocacy group GMO/Toxin Free USA alleging ALDI’s claim that its salmon is sustainably sourced is not credible. Earlier this year, Mowi agreed to settle a similar lawsuit for USD 1.3 million (EUR 1.1 million). The complaint alleged that the sustainability claims on its Ducktrap River of Maine smoked salmon were false.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Walton Family Foundation grants USD 6.7 million to Sustainable Fisheries Partnership

June 9, 2021 — The Walton Family Foundation has pledged USD 6.7 million (EUR 5.5 million) to support the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, renewing its foundational grant to the seafood sustainability-focused nonprofit.

The Walton Family Foundation support of SFP is aimed at advancing sustainability initiatives covering octopus, tuna, shrimp, squid, mahi, whitefish, reduction fisheries, blue swimming crab, and snapper and grouper. SFP is in the midst of its Target 75 campaign, which seeks to move 75 percent of the global production of crucial seafood sectors into fisheries certified as sustainable (Marine Stewardship Council-certified or equivalent) or classified as improving under a credible fishery improvement project.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Bumble Bee Seafood pursuing MSC certification for two longline tuna fisheries

May 24, 2021 — San Diego, California, U.S.A.-based Bumble Bee Seafood and its parent company, FCF Co., announced on 24 May they will be pursuing Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for two of their tuna fisheries.

The companies will pursue MSC fishery assessments of two longline fisheries that span multiple nations, including Taiwan, Fiji, Vanuatu, and others. The fishery covers three oceans, three tuna species, and more than 250 longline vessels, predominantly catching albacore tuna. The fisheries represent approximately 50 percent of Bumble Bee’s entire albacore tuna production.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Fraudulent Fish Foiled by Cancer-Catching Pen

May 18, 2021 — When chemistry graduate student Abby Gatmaitan first visited the University of Texas at Austin on a recruiting tour, she learned about the MasSpec Pen—a handheld device that scientists there were developing to diagnose tumors on contact. “I knew that was where I wanted to do my research,” she says. Shortly after joining the lab, she realized that if the pen could categorize human tissue, it would probably also work on other animals.

Gatmaitan had a very specific problem in mind, and her hunch paid off. Her research, published this spring in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, showed that touching the tip of the “pen” to a sample of raw meat or fish could correctly identify the species it came from. The device was tested on five samples and took less than 15 seconds for each of them. Roughly the length of a typical ink pen, the tool provided answers about 720 times faster than a leading meat-evaluating technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing—and it was much easier to use. Gatmaitan says it could help scientists tackle a global conservation issue: mislabeled seafood.

Seafood fraud is not just a concern for the restaurant diner who orders expensive, wild-caught red snapper, only to wind up with a plate of mercury-laden tilefish. Such deception also threatens the environment. Mislabeled fishes often come from poorly managed fisheries that can harm local ecosystems. Sometimes a fish is passed off as the wrong species or is falsely claimed to have been caught in a different geographical area in order to evade conservation laws or sell a catch for more money than its market value.

Read the full story at Scientific American

Fishery consultant claims MSC reputation damaged in Australia after roughy certification failure

May 14, 2021 — An Australian fishery consultancy, which has taken a financial hit from the fallout of the failed Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification of the orange roughy fishery, claims the MSC’s reputation may be damaged in the country by the certification’s failure.

“Just as MSC was about to take a step forward in Australia it takes several backwards and will become less relevant,” Simon Boag, a fisheries advisor at Australian-based Atlantis Fisheries Consulting Group – which was engaged by a number of orange roughy east quota owners to seek MSC accreditation – said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source