Salmon certification program launched worldwide

At the European Seafood Exposition 2013, ASC announced that the first salmon is expected to be certified shortly. The first Salmon audit has been scheduled for 11-14 June this year at the Bremnes Seashore AS farm in Norway, followed by Leroy Hydrotech – Hogsneset Nord Farm, from 14 June. The first ASC certified products for responsibly farmed salmon are expected to be available to the market by the end of the year.

In addition several other international companies have also expressed their commitment to the ASC Salmon programme. Marine Harvest, the world’s largest producer of farmed salmon, publicly announced that they will certify all their salmon farms against the ASC Salmon Standard for responsible aquaculture by 2020, making it the largest company to date to commit to the ASC certification programme. The company, which is responsible for nearly a quarter of the Scottish farmed salmon production, will initially roll out certification against the ASC standard of their salmon farms in Norway and Scotland. It is an important step for the farmed salmon market and will have a profound effect on the industry by introducing and standardising best practices for responsible farming practices on a global scale. The Norwegian producer Villa Organic will also soon announce their first ASC Salmon audit: “Villa is proudly promoting ASC and is looking forward to soon bringing ASC certified Salmon to the market” according to Ove Magnar Thu, Managing Director Villa Sales.

The ASC Salmon Standard aims to address the key negative environmental and social impacts of salmon farming associated with transparency on farm performance data, sourcing of feed ingredients, disease transmission between farms and wild salmon populations, controlling escapes into the wild, use of therapeutics and anti-biotics, site impacts, the presence of GMO products in feed and labour issues on farms.