Albert Heijn switches to ASC certified salmon

Albert Heijn is switching to ASC certified farmed salmon, this month, which means its customers can now enjoy their salmon in the secure knowledge that it comes from salmon farms that treat both the environment and their employees with care and respect.

Across the world, Albert Heijn is the first supermarket to offer ASC certified salmon on this scale, the outcome of its five-year collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Ensuring responsible sourcing

Fish features increasingly on consumers’ weekly menus as it’s both tasty and healthy, with salmon being the favourite in the Netherlands by far. At Albert Heijn, salmon accounts for no less than 45 per cent of all fresh fish sales. However, salmon farming can also damage the environment, so to ensure that its products are responsibly sourced Albert Heijn will now use only ASC certified salmon for both its fresh and its frozen own-brand products.

Elies Arps, Senior Advisor for Markets at WWF, explains: “The global population keeps growing and the demand for food – and so also for fish – will continue to increase. Overfishing is already a problem in many of the world’s oceans and wild fish will not meet these needs. Fish farming is a solid alternative and, when done responsibly, puts a relatively low burden on nature and the environment. Salmon farming is the fastest-growing food production sector in the world and it’s important to ensure standards through certification to combat the adverse effects on people and nature. The World Wildlife Fund is very happy that Albert Heijn, as one of the Netherlands’ biggest fish sellers, is taking responsibility.”

Step by step towards a more sustainable product range

Albert Heijn is working hard to provide its customers with good, safe, healthy and responsibly sourced food – where shoppers can be sure of where it comes from. This move is one of Albert Heijn’s many initiatives towards more responsible own brands. In the past few years the supermarket has taken a long, hard look at its own brand range, and has made significant progress towards its sustainability goals in over a thousand products, together with suppliers and certifying bodies.

To read more about the outcome of this work, go to ‘Step by step: Toward a more sustainable range’ at http://www.ah.nl.

ASC: a responsible choice

The ASC is an independent international non-profit organisation that manages and continuously develops its certification program for responsible fish farming. ASC certified fish comes from well-managed farms that monitor and mitigate their impact on water, nature and the environment, that treat their employees well and that take account of the interests of their communities.