Chain of Custody Certification for ASC-certified seafood now open for accreditation

Companies that want to trade/process ASC-certified seafood products will need to be chain-of-custody certified. ASC has now opened accreditation for certifiers. Once accredited, those certifiers can be contracted by traders/processors choosing to trade ASC-certified products

To help the market handle ASC-certified products as efficient as possible, ASC and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) have updated the MSC chain-of-custody system to include the assessment of ASC-certified farms products. The MSC Certification Requirements v.1.2 (http://www.msc.org/documents/scheme-documents) now includes Annex BE, which details the variations between chain-of-custody assessments for the handling of MSC and ASC-certified products.

Companies that already hold a valid chain-of-custody certification for MSC-certified products, can apply for a combined certification for both seafood types by means of a simplified assessment process.

Companies which do not yet hold MSC chain-of-custody certification will need to be fully assessed to become chain-of-custody certified.

Several certification bodies have already applied to Accreditation Service International (ASI) for carrying out assessments of ASC products and are currently under review. For more information visit ASI’s website.