Cooke and Atlantic Sapphire on sustainable fish list
Salmon farmers Cooke Inc. and Atlantic Sapphire have been named among the top 25 seafood suppliers in North America for sustainability and conservation.
Idaho trout farmer Riverence and striped bass producer Pacifico aquaculture, which farms off the shores of Baja California, were also the companies chosen by website SeafoodSource.com, a division of Seafood Expo Global’s owner Diversified Communications.
The Top 25 list, which is organised alphabetically and not ranked in order of merit, features North American seafood companies that have demonstrated efforts and advancements relating to sustainability and conservation.
Spawning salmon
The chosen companies have proven to be leaders in transforming the industry to become more sustainably minded and validated their commitment to protecting the environment within their business practice.
Cooke’s environmental and sustainability efforts include initiating a corporate-wide environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting project, and working with industry, government, First Nations and academia to increase the number of spawning salmon in New Brunswick rivers.
The company has also launched a number ofmproducts in fully recyclable packaging and takes part in a number of third-party certification programmes.
Assurance for customers
“In addition to our best practices and environmental certifications, being recognised as one of the top among some of the best in class seafood producers provides assurance to our customers that our True North Seafood products come from a sustainable, responsibly harvested resource,” said Cooke press spokesman Joel Richardson.
“We are committed to maintaining and improving the health of our oceans and coastal communities as one of our guiding principles while producing fresh, quality seafood.”
At this time Cooke, one of the world’s biggest salmon farmers, and Miami-based on-land producer Atlantic Sapphire couldn’t be much further apart in terms of volume, with the latter having just completed its first harvest. But the company has plans to produce 220,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon a year by 2030.
The Top 25 were chosen by SeafoodSource’s editorial team in conjunction with a panel of outside experts who included Teresa Ish of the Walton Family Foundation, which has a focus on protecting rivers and oceans, and James Wright of the Global Aquaculture Advocate.
As well as fish farmers, suppliers were the main winners.
