A Focus on Feed at the ASC Partner Update Meeting

For the fifth consecutive year, the ASC opened the second day of Seafood Expo North America with a partner update meeting. In front of an early morning audience, the ASC spoke directly to those in attendance about the upcoming feed standard and hosted a discussion focused on the importance of sustainable feed to the growing aquaculture industry.

Michiel Fransen, Standards and Certification Coordinator for the  ASC,  is leading the development of the feed standard and kicked the session off with an overview of the standard and its progress to date. The update was followed by a lively panel discussion moderated by Scott Nichols, Founder & Principal of Food’s Future LLC. For the panel discussion and Q&A, Michiel and Chris Ninnes,  ASC’s CEO,  were joined on stage by  Michael Tlusty, Director of Ocean Sustainability Science, New England Aquarium; Avrim Lazar, Facilitator for  Global Salmon Initiative and Blake Lee-Harwood, Communications & Strategy Director for the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership. The session provided a snapshot of the differing perspectives and approaches to the complexities surrounding the use of marine and terrestrial components to feed farmed fish.

“The ASC Feed Standard will allow producers to know they are sourcing the most environmentally sound and socially responsible ingredients,” said Michel Fransen, ASC Standard and Certification Coordinator. “The standard is designed to incentivise fisheries on various sustainability levels to join the programme and improve their performance over time. Importantly, the standard also addresses the terrestrial components and plant derived ingredients beyond soy. We want to provide clear guidelines on all the components that go into feed in order to minimise negative impacts on all aspects of the production and sourcing.”

“Aquaculture’s ability to make dramatic increases in animal protein production is at the center of a hopeful food future.  Its resource use efficiency is unmatched but, to achieve its greatest potential, we must use feed ingredients and practices that continually lower aquaculture’s environmental footprint,” said Scott Nichols, Founder & Principal, Food’s Future, LLC.

The ASC Feed Standard will enable the feed industry to operate on a more environmentally sound and socially responsible basis. It will define requirements for both responsible factory practices, as well as requirements for the sourcing of responsible components for the three main ingredient groups: marine ingredients, terrestrial plant ingredients, and animal ingredients.

A second draft of the Feed Standard will be available for public comments in the coming months.  In addition to this work, the ASC is currently holding public consultations for the joint ASC-MSC Seaweed Standard. You can provided input on the development of the seaweed project and learn more about the work of the ASC at asc-aqua.org