ASC Feed Standard V1.2 Update

What has changed?

ASC has revised its Feed Standard to V1.2, taking into account feedback collected in targeted stakeholder consultations.

ASC Feed Standard V1.1 (released 1 May 2025) did not come into effect on 1 November 2025 and has been superseded by an Urgent Revision to ASC Feed Standard V1.2, released 19 December 2025, effective and mandatory on 2 February 2026.

An Urgent Revision is a process which involves additional and focused substantive changes to select indicators.

The substantive changes as announced for V1.1 will still be implemented. These are:

• A new greenhouse gas (GHG) disclosure indicator requiring the reporting of species-specific data;
• A new requirement to report GHG data using both relative mass and economic allocation calculation methods;
• The cut-off date requiring no sourcing of plant raw materials from deforested or converted land is to be set at 31 December 2020.

These changes were introduced to align feed-to-farm reporting data with ASC Farm Standard requirements, and to align with legislative requirements.

Additionally, the Feed Certification Requirements for the Unit of Certification (RUoC) will be retired and will no longer apply to feed mills certified to V1.2 of the ASC Feed Standard onwards. Requirements previously contained within the RUoC have been incorporated to other ASC normative documents, as follows:

• Technical requirements for feed mills have been incorporated into ASC Feed Standard V1.2 so that feed mills can see all their requirements in one document.
• Assurance requirements have been included in the new ASC Farm and Feed Certification and Accreditation Requirements (CAR) v1.0, and the Feed RUoC will no longer be used.

The additional substantive changes for V1.2 cover permitted due diligence outcomes for primary raw materials under Principle  2 and mass balance eligibility volume calculations. These are:

• Exception introduced to indicator 2.2.9 to permit sourcing of identified Principle 2 Due Diligence Medium Risk ingredients, for use in non-ASC aquafeeds and as non-eligible ingredients in ASC Mass Balance production model feeds.
  • Medium Risk as determined from Due Diligence Pathways 1, 2 & 3, at primary raw material level;
  • This would be for a limited time (three years) from 2 February 2026, after which requirements will revert to Low Risk only outcomes of Due Diligence;
  • Medium Risk plant ingredients must still be subject to Principle 5 requirements.
• Modification to indicator 3.2.2 to require a minimum sourcing volume of eligible Category 1 plant materials.

A full list of changes can be found in the document version history table in the ASC Feed Standard V1.2.

ASC Feed Standard V1.2 and ASC Feed Interpretation Manual V1.2 were released 19 December 2025.

ASC Feed Standard V1.2 comes into effect from 2 February 2026. Any feed mill audits announced on or after this date must be against the new version (V1.2) and will be audited in conjunction with the new ASC Farm and Feed CAR v1.0.

In the interim period, ASC feed audits shall continue to be conducted against the ASC Feed Standard V1.0.1 and with the Feed CAR and RUoC V1.0.1.

• VR1015 has been released to bridge the gap in sourcing conforming ingredients and can still be used during the interim period for mills certified to V1.01.

Key dates

19 December 2025: ASC Feed Standard V1.2 documents released

• Implementation phase commences;
• Any feed mills getting certified will be audited against the ASC Feed Standard v1.01.

2 February 2026: ASC Feed Standard V1.2 effective and mandatory

• Any feed mill audits announced on or after this date must be against the new version (ASC Feed Standard V1.2) and will be audited in conjunction with the new ASC Farm and Feed CAR v1.0.

2 February 2027

• ASC Feed Standard V1.2 the only version in circulation.