Episode 6

Exploring Seafood Certification, Benchmarking, and Beyond

with Dan Lee

Dan Lee is the Technical and Projects Advisor at the Global Seafood Alliance (GSA). He spent his early career farming crustaceans, most notably marine shrimp, for research and commercial projects in South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. He gained an international reputation as an aquaculture expert through the publication of the textbook Crustacean Farming, Ranching and Culture and through his work with the GSA and the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) program. He has assisted in the development of international standards for responsible aquaculture, with special regard to food safety, animal welfare, and environmental and social issues.

Global Seafood Alliance and Best Aquaculture Practices

The Global Seafood Alliance (GSA) advances responsible seafood practices worldwide through education, advocacy, and demonstration.

GSA convenes seafood industry leaders, academia, and NGOs to collaborate on issues like environmental and social responsibility, animal health and welfare, food safety, and more. GSA is a membership-driven organization. Members include certified producers, corporations, and individuals.

A division of the GSA, Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) is an international certification program based on achievable, science-based, and continuously improved performance standards. It is designed for the entire aquaculture production chain – including processing plants, farms, hatcheries, and feed mills.

GSSI and BAP

In October of 2017, GSSI formally recognized the BAP Certification for the scope of Aquaculture. BAP has now been successfully re-benchmarked for their BAP Farm Standard (version 3.1, 2021), Salmon Farms Standard (version 2.4, 2016), and Mollusk Farms Standard (version 1.2, 2021).
More information can be found here.

Dan, tell us a little about the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certification program.

The BAP program is based on independent audits that evaluate compliance with the BAP standards developed by GSA. The BAP certification program is benchmarked by globally recognized third parties. Being recognized by the gatekeepers of international certification standards is very important to the integrity of the BAP program.

Among benchmarked standards, BAP standards are unique in the depth and breadth of their coverage. This is because they address the full range of responsible practices: environmental and social responsibility, food safety, and animal welfare. As a result of this broad coverage, the program makes use of three different benchmarking entities (GSSI, The Global Food Safety Initiative(GFSI), and The Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative (SSCI)). Originally focusing on farmed seafood our GSA program now extends to wild-caught seafood by building upon other GSSI benchmarked certifications for wild products. GSSI serves as a trusted, independent filter for seafood assurances.

Seafood certification can be a confusing space, where labels sometimes end up providing more confusion than transparency. Can you speak to this and how BAP works to minimize this confusion?

Certification has become a well-recognized assurance-based solution that helps ensure the maintenance of healthy fish populations, minimal impact on the environment, and responsible management practices. As you mentioned, with many kinds of labels, claims, and logos in the market, it does become confusing. Producers, retailers, and consumers need to understand which certification schemes they can trust.

At GSA/BAP we work closely with retailers and the food service sector to offer solutions that can simplify sourcing decisions. While promoting our own program, we also acknowledge that choice is important and that building a sourcing policy around GSSI-benchmarked schemes can provide a good balance between flexibility and necessary assurances.

Being GSSI certified allows us to showcase our commitment and alignment with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Guidelines. By undergoing the Global Benchmark Tool process, we are assured that the BAP standards meet the bar for our environmental, governmental, and operational criteria. This in turn helps mitigate the confusion in the label space.

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While promoting our own program, we also acknowledge that choice is important and that building a sourcing policy around GSSI-benchmarked schemes can provide a good balance between flexibility and necessary assurances.

Dan, can you speak to the value of benchmarking?

Sustainability claims are easy to make, but establishing their validity demands concerted effort. GSSI’s Benchmark Tool brings consistency and rigor to this effort. For a sustainable planet we need to shift towards foods with lower impacts and seafood markets can play an active role by favouring responsibly produced seafood. However, deciding what constitutes responsible production is not a straightforward matter. As we just mentioned – there are many eco-labels, certifications, and sustainability claims around that have proliferated, from multiple interested parties, but which of these can be relied upon as consistent, transparent, and rigorous sources of information? Thankfully, the FAO stepped up to fill the void and published a set of guidance documents. GSSI has followed up by converting these documents into a detailed set of compliance (benchmarking) criteria that can be used to test the mettle of seafood assurance programs. This benchmarking exercise has brought some order to a cluttered landscape, helping to ensure that markets are a force for good in driving seafood sustainability.

The Global Benchmark Tool has been gaining traction in the industry and creating more confidence. How do you see the tool developing in the coming years and what effect do you think that will have on the industry?

The Tool has already transformed into an online platform, showing that it can make good use of IT and streamline its operations. This flexibility should be carried forward so that efficiencies are continually achieved. Industry uptake will increase as improvements accrue.

GSSI’s Tool is helping to underpin the sustainable seafood movement globally. The success of this movement will ensure that current and future generations can enjoy the benefits of seafood. Well-managed natural resources will increase supply levels and help to reduce food insecurity globally. It’s good to note that GSSI has closely aligned itself with the SSCI – the benchmark for social standards, underlining the importance of social responsibility as well as environmental responsibility.

As more people come to know about the Tool, there will be an even stronger value in GSSI recognition, with more schemes acting globally to improve standards. The net outcome will be to minimize the overall environmental impact of how we produce, catch, and supply seafood.

The seafood industry employs over 250 million people around the world. However, social responsibility and protecting worker’s rights still has a way to go. What are your thoughts on seafood certification schemes dedicating attention to social compliance?

This aspect of responsible production remains critical. GSA has its Responsible Fishing Vessel Standard (RFVS) that specifically addresses conditions for workers at sea. What good are sustainably fished marine resources if the fishers are suffering exploitation? This topic needs more attention and technological developments will hopefully assist in raising compliance levels.

The Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative (SSCI) offers practical guidance on the industry’s minimum expectations for how to evaluate supply chain sustainability. The SSCI helps build trust in sustainability standards worldwide, driving alignment among the many different third-party auditing, monitoring, and certification schemes that assist companies in their supply chain due diligence. The RFVS has been successfully benchmarked to SSCI, again showing how GSA values international benchmarking initiatives. The GSA Seafood Processing Standard Issue 5.1 is currently being benchmarked under Scope AI — Social Compliance: Manufacturing & Processing.

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What good are sustainably fished marine resources if the fishers are suffering exploitation? This topic needs more attention and technological developments will hopefully assist in raising compliance levels.

Looking forward, can you share anything about what’s on the horizon for yourself?

My own interest in seafood stems from my love of eating it, farming it, catching it, and now promoting responsible practices. With a background in shrimp aquaculture, I’m quite protective of the industry because it’s the ‘new kid on the block’ among established food production systems and it needs space to grow and develop to its full potential. My work with GSA can contribute to this objective and I’m always ready to fly the flag for seafood. ‘Put another prawn on the barbie’, as they say in Australia.

CeDePesca

Encourage good practices in small-scale fisheries through co-management.

CeDePesca are working on a confirmation of a Co-management Commission in Panama have begun data collection through voluntary logbooks by fishers.

It is an ongoing experience where we are discussing and resolving together how to recover the diminished resources that make our livelihoods. We really thank CeDePesca and Seafood MAP for their help on this process.

Ernesto Vargas

FENAPESCA (National Artisanal Fishers Federation)

The Philippines and Indonesia - Asian Seafood Improvement Collaborative

Providing improvement-oriented programs to smallholder producers and fishers to improve their social and environmental practices for better international markets while improving livelihoods and building resilient communities.

This aquaculture project seeks to engage smallholder shrimp farmers to help them improve their efforts towards environmental, social, and gender equality sustainability targets. ASIC provides improvement programs to allow for a step-by-step continuous journey for smallholder farmers to comply with the ASIC Shrimp and Social and Gender Standards. The program offers verification of sustainable practices at no cost which is then leveraged to provide direct market access to buyers. ASIC fisheries project is working to finalize its program while providing support to existing fisheries programs in the Philippines and looking to pilot its program soon.

The social and gender components are a new area that we have not yet heard before and through this program, our awareness has increased - which extended to farm management, household, and to the community level.

Smallholder Farmer

Indonesia

Uganda - Deutsche Gesellschaft fϋr Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

Ensuring food security and reducing poverty by increasing fish supply and income

The Responsible Fisheries Business Chains Project (RFBCP) in Uganda is concentrating on sustainable fisheries management of Nile Perch on Lake Victoria and Lake Kyoga. Currently, GIZ-RFBCP is drafting selection criteria that will be used to identify producers to work with. The status of such businesses will be ascertained at the beginning and where points of weakness are identified in regards to sustainability measures. GIZ-RFBCP will work with producers to validate their sustainability measures and help them register on the Seafood MAP.

China - China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance and China Blue Sustainability Institute

Optimizing the industrial layout, conserving fishery resources, and protecting water ecology to meet the growing consumer demand for high-quality protein and to provide producers with new sustainable practices.

CAPPMA and China Blue have been working with scientific research teams, producers, purchasers, and other stakeholders over the span of this project. In close cooperation, a large amount of research has been carried out and suggestions have been made for the optimization and next development of the Seafood MAP registration model based on China's characteristics and reality.

In China, there are many types of aquatic products available for residents to consume, and the production model is diversified. Reflecting on our pilot work so far, we know more time is needed to optimize, but we are looking forward to establishing a concrete buildout of the Seafood MAP platform to move our work forward and improve.

Janelle Dong

CAPPMA

Papua New Guinea - Fishing Association of Papua New Guinea

Exposing our progress and performance with seafood supply chain partners and finding common ground for collaboration to move towards certification.

The prawn and lobster fisheries management in the area is aimed at preserving the fishery for the traditional inhabitants, with strict limited entry for non-inhabitants. We aim to move all fisheries and aquaculture operations toward sustainable certification, we need Seafood MAP as a path to educate our fisher how to collect data properly, report and assess it.

Seafood MAP has increased the collaboration between the National Fishery Authority and the producers in the area with respect to data collection, measuring performance and reporting against the robust Seafood MAP criteria based on FAO and SDG indicators.

Marcelo Hidalgo

Sustainability Director, FIA PNG

Aquaconnect and IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative

Working towards more efficient resource use by collecting and analyzing farm and disease data.

The project focused on improving disease data collection and analysis, by linking Aquaconnect to a lead aquatic epidemiologist. The objective of the project is to provide farmers better information on diseases with the ultimate aim to improve resource efficiency. The Aquaconnect team tested the Seafood MAP registration form for seafood producers, as well as the self-evaluation form for their customers.

Through the IDH-Aquaconnect program, we were able to promote sustainable practices among the farmers communities and set several shrimp production benchmarks. One of the key highlights is that we have redesigned our data architecture to capture individual and population-level symptoms to support the shrimp epidemiology study.

Sudhakar Velayutham

Project Manager, Aquaconnect

Indonesia - UNIDO

Strengthening the quality and standard compliance capacity of small and medium-scale enterprises to improve market access to both domestic and international markets.

The programme supports the country to align the demand and supply of quality services required by markets through enhancing quality infrastructure and services, strengthening producers and value chains, and raising a culture for quality.

The Indonesian fisheries sector has great potential for both capture fisheries and aquaculture, with small fishers and farmers dominating the sector. Small scale fishers and farmers usually have limited access to markets, technology, information, finance, and public services. Helping them to improve their access to these services will ultimately improve their livelihood that could incentivize sustainable fishing and farming practices.

Ita Sualia

Chief Operations Officer, UNIDO

Ecuador - Sustainable Shrimp Partnership and IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative

Supporting SSP members to achieve their goals and supporting small and medium-scale farmers to achieve SSP through the establishment and coordination of an improvement program.

Over the course of the project, twelve farms qualified for the SSP criteria of zero antibiotics, ASC certification, minimal environmental impact, and full traceability. Currently, the SSP focuses on a better understanding of their carbon and water footprint by joining the IDH Aquaculture Working Group on Environmental footprint. The SSP team tested the Seafood MAP registration form for seafood producers, as well as the self-evaluation form for their improvement program.

The improvement program allowed us to support small shrimp farms to demonstrate accountability by improving their environmental and social performance and it demonstrated that SSP members are committed to the highest levels of transparency by being the first shrimp producers in the world to adapt blockchain traceability for shrimp

Pamela Nath

Director, SSP

Mozambique - Pescamar and Nueva Pescanova

Improve maritime fishing training in Mozambique to ensure local generational replacement of fleet masters and resilience of fishing communities

The project is a public-private initiative that transfers knowledge from the Atlantic Maritime Fisheries Institute of Vigo (Spain) to the Matola Fishing School (Mozambique) funded by AECID and the collaboration of Pescamar and Nueva Pescanova. To date it has allowed improving the school´s curricula, and its equipment and has incorporated students to work at Pescamar.

Seafood MAP will give visibility to the work that Pescamar is doing to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals, in this case highlighting its collaborative work to improve fisheries education.

Jose Joaquin Rodriguez

General Manager, Pescamar

Hugo Byrnes

Vice President Product Integrity, Ahold Delhaize

Hugo Byrnes joined Ahold in 2006 and was subsequently appointed to the position of Vice President Product Integrity. He is responsible for Ahold Delhaize’s food and non-food product policies, which cover product safety and responsible products. This includes social compliance, animal welfare and environmental issues. Hugo Byrnes has a Dutch Law degree from the State University Leiden, the Netherlands. He is a food lawyer whose career has focused on the food business and in particular on quality management and standardization.

Flavio Corsin

Director of Partnerships, Aqua-Spark

Flavio has spent more than two decades working in responsible aquaculture globally for non-profit, intergovernmental, and for-profit organizations. As Aqua-Spark’s Director of Partnerships, he is responsible for driving the development and execution of a robust partner ecosystem that aligns all stakeholders behind a core vision, while supporting Aqua-Spark’s portfolio, network, and goals. Prior to joining Aqua-Spark, Flavio worked for IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, overseeing their Aquaculture Program. He was also IDH Vietnam Country Director, establishing groundbreaking public-private partnerships in coffee, tea, and apparel. He founded and ran the sustainability arm of the Vietnam association of farmers and fishers (VINAFIS). He has worked as an expert for over 20 international organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Flavio holds an M.Sc. in Aquaculture from the University of Stirling and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology, the study of diseases in populations, from the University of Liverpool.

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